Only 31% of Americans want an EV or PHEV. What about you?

[Zorba]

The other thing, unless you work on your own cars, keeping an ICE past 100,000/10 years can be quite expensive. Just getting the plugs done or having a coil replaced can get up towards $1K. The valve body on my tranny cost me $1100 to do myself, over 2k from the dealer.

I know most people here work on their cars themselves, but that isn't typical. Once an aftermarket battery market developes, I really don't think EVs will be worse than IVe, and probably better because there is a lot less stuff.

 

[Viper GTS]

Almost certainly better - There are essentially no wear parts on the drivetrain of an EV. With the exception of some early failure batteries are expected to continue functioning at reduced storage capacity. The bulk industry experience on this is still ramping up, but early data suggests that properly implemented batteries do not experience significant degradation after the first few years and that the vast majority should remain viable past the useful life of the chassis. Limitations on EV lifespan will be the same kinds of things that doom other reliability favorites - Corrosion, crashes, and the body/interior just plain wearing out.

This idea of used EVs being a guaranteed battery replacement at some point in the vehicle life is just not supported by data today.

Viper GTS

 

[Brovane]

I think we have to be honest with ourselves..

EV's will be very successful with first time buyers who can get the most out of their purchase and especially with people who don't like to maintain their vehicles!

But just like German/ European cars which do amazingly well for 100k miles and then start breaking all the time and cost more in repairs than the actual cost of the purchase.. EV's will likely head in that direction.


The only solution will be if EV batteries become easily interchangeable by the owners themselves and it's as easy as replacing ICE car batteries x5. (basically like changing RAM)

That'll sell!

I would really like to see a actual comparison between BEV Drivetrains and ICE Drive-trains and how often over 250k miles what percent actual need major drive-train work.

EV's just have considerably less moving parts in their drive-trains to break than a comparable ICE vehicle. I am more concerned really with modern cars all the stuff outside of the drive-train that can go bad like airbag sensors, entertainment center etc. My 2019 Leaf has already had the entertainment center and backup camera both replaced once under warranty. Have had zero issue with the motor and HV battery.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Here’s the thing you are missing - That invoice is roughly the equivalent of putting a new crate motor in at a dealer. It’s the absolute most expensive way to fix the problem.

The vast majority of EVs sold in the US are still under their original powertrain warranty due to the federally mandated warranty duration. As in-use vehicles age out of this warranty in volume the aftermarket will fill the void just like they do today on ICE vehicles. There’s little money to be made right now in this space, and the place where there is demand already has aftermarket (look at the original Leaf as an example of this).

Almost nobody puts a new motor or transmission into a 100k mile daily driver vehicle, and almost nobody will buy a new battery at a dealer for an equivalent EV. These catastrophic failures are rare in modern ICE vehicles, and are also rare in EVs.

Just like in ICE vehicles an EV that suffers a catastrophically expensive failure will still have value (and realistically, the battery is the only such repair on an EV).

In short, owning used vehicles is a gamble, it always has been. EVs will be no different.

Viper GTS

That's the thing, with a gas car you rarely have to put a new motor, but with EVs, they will not service the battery, they just want to replace it. It would be like replacing the whole engine because of a O2 sensor issue. Yeah gas cars have issues, but those issues are cheaper to fix. All my repair bills have been in the 100's of dollars and happen maybe once a year. Less than a car payment worth in repairs, per year, if that. With EVs they don't really want to work on them, they only want to replace major components. It's not even just the battery but also the body, lot of these are designed as large one pieces that are very expensive to replace and can't be repaired. Large windows or weird shaped body parts etc. You get a fender bender and it can be 10's of thousands to repair. And nobody wants to do the work on it because it's an EV so you need to have it towed to a service centre which could be 100's of km away.

I'd say a used gas car is a way lesser gamble than an EV, since the fixes on a gas car are much cheaper and you can bring it to any garage, there's lot of competition so mechanics tend to keep prices fairly standard.

Part of the issue is that they are treating EVs like tech, instead of a vehicle. It's basically a smartphone on wheels. Once that warranty is over they basically just want you to get a new one as it's not economical to repair.

In theory EVs should in fact be better in terms of repairability, but the way they build these things makes that not the case. They're made to be disposable.

 

[Indus]

In theory EVs should in fact be better in terms of repairability, but the way they build these things makes that not the case. They're made to be disposable.

You seriously need to watch this video:

It's not just an EV problem anymore. Gone are the days when something was an easy fix. If anything older vehicles are easier to repair!

Now all newer cars are designed to break to force people to buy new cars! Basically the phone every 2 years because you can't swap batteries model instead of the old landline phone that lasted you 8-10 years!

 

[iamwiz82]

My current take:

1. I want a 500-mile EV. The Cybertruck gets pretty close at 470 advertised miles with the extra battery. The Lucid Air is advertised at 516 miles of range, but gets 438 in the real world, which is still pretty good.

2. I just got my invitation for the Cybertruck. Right now, only the Founder's Edition is available. The AWD 340-mile range version is $99k & the Cyberbeast is $120k, plus another $16k for the add-on battery pack. 340 advertised miles for $100,000 is not quite what I had in mind when I pre-ordered it lol. Initial range reports are 164 to 204 miles. My current ICE vehicle gets 300 to 400 miles of range & fills up in under 3 minutes from empty (timed it!).

3. I'm not interested in compromises or extremely high price tags. I don't want to play the range anxiety game. EV's aren't where I want them to be quite yet, maybe in a few years...

Why the need for 500 miles? The difference with an EV is that you plug it in at night. It's charged and right back where it needs to be. You drive 200 miles, come home, plug in, and the next day you are back where you started. I love to drive and frequently take long trips, but a 500 mile range makes zero sense to me because there is no way I would want to drive for 7 hours straight in any situation.

 

[Zorba]

Why the need for 500 miles? The difference with an EV is that you plug it in at night. It's charged and right back where it needs to be. You drive 200 miles, come home, plug in, and the next day you are back where you started. I love to drive and frequently take long trips, but a 500 mile range makes zero sense to me because there is no way I would want to drive for 7 hours straight in any situation.

I routinely drive 400 in a go, but that is enough for me and usually glad the car is low at that point.

In an EV I'd much rather it be cheaper and lighter and be able to charge fast.

 

[Kaido]

Why the need for 500 miles? The difference with an EV is that you plug it in at night. It's charged and right back where it needs to be. You drive 200 miles, come home, plug in, and the next day you are back where you started. I love to drive and frequently take long trips, but a 500 mile range makes zero sense to me because there is no way I would want to drive for 7 hours straight in any situation.

It's very situation-dependent, as there's no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to EV's. A few factors to consider for my particular situation, which is what I'm judging against:

1. I drive all over the tri-state area for work to visit clients on-site. Some days it's 20 miles & some days it's a few hundred miles. My weekly average time in traffic is 2 hours per day, including driving in freezing conditions, which affects the battery range. From an empty tank, my current ICE takes 2 minutes & 30 seconds to refill from empty (timed it several times).

2. Real-world driving & not babying the vehicle results in vastly reduced actual range. The 340-mile Cybertruck is currently averaging 164 to 210 miles in practice. That means on the stock AWD battery, I'd potentially be getting getting a 105-mile-distance (on the high side!) round-trip average without charging. Sometimes I have to hit up a few clients in a day & am on the road for a few hours at a time, so I'd want a vehicle where I didn't have to compromise. They do have an extender available (130 miles for $16k...or you could just buy a brand-new 40mpg-highway Nissan Versa lol), but then you lose 1/3 of the trunk space.

3. I rent & don't have a charger available, so I'd be entirely dependent on public infrastructure. I do have clients with on-site EV chargers, but none with the special high-speed Tesla chargers. The AWD Cybertruck with the extended range battery gives you 470 miles of advertised range, which means less charging trips required, but also costs $96,000, so I'm not really saving any money on paying for electric fuel over gasoline lol.

To me, a 500-mile battery gives me a lot of mental comfort because even if it's 50% in real-world driving conditions, that's still 250 miles of actual, reliable range. Real-world tests of the Cybertruck recharging are showing roughly 130 miles in 15 minutes, so assuming you're in range of a non-shared-stall working V3 Supercharger, you can get plenty of juice to get home. The nearest Supercharger is about 20 minutes away from me & isn't always on my way home, however, plus lines are beginning to grow as more people buy Tesla & Tesla-charger-compatible vehicles.

I'd be pretty comfortable not changing my driving habits with a 500-mile battery that gets 50% of the advertised range in cold conditions with a real-world driving style. 470 advertised miles (minus 1/3 of the bed space for the XL battery) for $96k is not quite as appealing, however. So to answer your questions:

1. No charger where I live, so no overnight charging

2. I sometimes (at least once a week) drive a lot of miles for work & don't want to have to build my day around finding location charging

3. One guy managed 254 miles of actual range on the 320-mile Cybertruck, which doesn't exactly give me comfort if I end up getting called to an on-site emergency far away, which happens multiple times a month

The base price of the $39k Cybertruck is now $60k, and the $60k Cybertruck isn't even available until 2025. There is no 500-mile Cybertruck available & the 470-mile eats up storage room & adds literally the price of a basic new car to the total cost lol. So...not quite as advertised. I'll hold out for a few more years, haha!

 

[Kaido]

The other thing, unless you work on your own cars, keeping an ICE past 100,000/10 years can be quite expensive. Just getting the plugs done or having a coil replaced can get up towards $1K. The valve body on my tranny cost me $1100 to do myself, over 2k from the dealer.

I know most people here work on their cars themselves, but that isn't typical. Once an aftermarket battery market developes, I really don't think EVs will be worse than IVe, and probably better because there is a lot less stuff.

Great article from a 4-year owner:

4 Years & 110,000 Miles On My 2019 Tesla Model 3 Long Range, Where Do I Stand Now? - CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! October 21 was the ... [continued]

cleantechnica.com

 

[iamwiz82]

It's very situation-dependent, as there's no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to EV's. A few factors to consider for my particular situation, which is what I'm judging against:

1. I drive all over the tri-state area for work to visit clients on-site. Some days it's 20 miles & some days it's a few hundred miles. My weekly average time in traffic is 2 hours per day, including driving in freezing conditions, which affects the battery range. From an empty tank, my current ICE takes 2 minutes & 30 seconds to refill from empty (timed it several times).

2. Real-world driving & not babying the vehicle results in vastly reduced actual range. The 340-mile Cybertruck is currently averaging 164 to 210 miles in practice. That means on the stock AWD battery, I'd potentially be getting getting a 105-mile-distance (on the high side!) round-trip average without charging. Sometimes I have to hit up a few clients in a day & am on the road for a few hours at a time, so I'd want a vehicle where I didn't have to compromise. They do have an extender available (130 miles for $16k...or you could just buy a brand-new 40mpg-highway Nissan Versa lol), but then you lose 1/3 of the trunk space.

3. I rent & don't have a charger available, so I'd be entirely dependent on public infrastructure. I do have clients with on-site EV chargers, but none with the special high-speed Tesla chargers. The AWD Cybertruck with the extended range battery gives you 470 miles of advertised range, which means less charging trips required, but also costs $96,000, so I'm not really saving any money on paying for electric fuel over gasoline lol.

To me, a 500-mile battery gives me a lot of mental comfort because even if it's 50% in real-world driving conditions, that's still 250 miles of actual, reliable range. Real-world tests of the Cybertruck recharging are showing roughly 130 miles in 15 minutes, so assuming you're in range of a non-shared-stall working V3 Supercharger, you can get plenty of juice to get home. The nearest Supercharger is about 20 minutes away from me & isn't always on my way home, however, plus lines are beginning to grow as more people buy Tesla & Tesla-charger-compatible vehicles.

I'd be pretty comfortable not changing my driving habits with a 500-mile battery that gets 50% of the advertised range in cold conditions with a real-world driving style. 470 advertised miles (minus 1/3 of the bed space for the XL battery) for $96k is not quite as appealing, however. So to answer your questions:

1. No charger where I live, so no overnight charging

2. I sometimes (at least once a week) drive a lot of miles for work & don't want to have to build my day around finding location charging

3. One guy managed 254 miles of actual range on the 320-mile Cybertruck, which doesn't exactly give me comfort if I end up getting called to an on-site emergency far away, which happens multiple times a month

The base price of the $39k Cybertruck is now $60k, and the $60k Cybertruck isn't even available until 2025. There is no 500-mile Cybertruck available & the 470-mile eats up storage room & adds literally the price of a basic new car to the total cost lol. So...not quite as advertised. I'll hold out for a few more years, haha!

I'm not rallying for the Cybertruck. I think it's ugly and wouldn't want it

If you don't have reliable, personal level 2 charging available I would NOT recommend an EV. I completely agree with your 500 mile range in that case. I'd still be concerned over vampire draw, cold snaps, etc.

 

[skyking]

No home charging is a deal breaker for me too.
I've never been in that situation in my life, so it is a foreign concept to not have a carport or garage of my own.
As far as stopping to charge in 300 miles, I consider that a feature and not a bug. I want out of the seat and taking a walkabout after 4 hours.

 

[misuspita]

If recharging from 0 to full could take around 15 minutes, then 500km is enough for 90% people. 300 miles for US

 

[sdifox]

If recharging from 0 to full could take around 15 minutes, then 500km is enough for 90% people. 300 miles for US

err, that battery is going to go Flame On.

 

[misuspita]

Refrigerate the battery coolant during charging

 

[skyking]

oh sure, cold with solution........

 

[Brovane]

If recharging from 0 to full could take around 15 minutes, then 500km is enough for 90% people. 300 miles for US

No they will then claim it needs to take no more than 5 mins, like filling a gas car.

With the 800V systems we are getting really close to that with cars going from 10-80% in less than 20 minutes.

 

[Kaido]

I'm not rallying for the Cybertruck. I think it's ugly and wouldn't want it

If you don't have reliable, personal level 2 charging available I would NOT recommend an EV. I completely agree with your 500 mile range in that case. I'd still be concerned over vampire draw, cold snaps, etc.

Yup, hence the 500-mile range requirement. Technically, the Lucid Air has a 516-mile version, but that clocks in at $138k, which is short 80 miles in real-world testing:

TESTED: 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring Misses EPA Range by Nearly 80 Miles | Edmunds

We spent our own money on a 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring and now we've tested its real-world range on two separate occasions. Can it go 516 miles on a charge like the EPA says? Not according to our data. Read on for the full story.

www.edmunds.com

In two separate tests, we achieved 425 miles and 438 miles, respectively, compared with the EPA estimate of 516 miles.

I love weird, ugly cars. The Cybertruck is pretty extreme. Just not real happy with the price vs. non-500-mile range vs. real-world range. Like, a $39k electric truck with a 250-mile range is a pretty awesome idea & is something I'd probably be willing to compromise for. Or a "reasonably"-priced 500-mile battery truck. I'll be sticking with my Ford for a few more years lol.

 

[thedarkwolf]

Other than towing what really matters is

1. lots of charging places being available and reliable
2. quick charging speeds for when you do need to make long road trips
3. plenty of range for daily crap with a decent amount of range for trips 250ish
4. lower prices (this is where 250ish miles comes in I don't need to pay for a 200kwh battery to get 500 miles when I daily 40 or less).

#1 is still the biggest problem around me. The Tesla SC network opening up to other makes this year will help but that is only V3 and newer units and all the ones in my state are V2. I still don't have any Electrify America stations in my state and would have to rely on a few unreliable Dealerships most of which are 50kw units to travel.

If you are towing longer distances you have 15-20 years before anything become viable. If you want to drive 500 miles often and nonstop you are an anomaly. We shouldn't waste batteries on towers and the 500 mile people when we could build 2 or 3 normal cars instead. The new Ram Charger is your best option.

 

[Red Squirrel]

For people that go on family road trips I can see the need for lot of miles. A vehicle is a huge financial decision like buying a house (and practically in the same price range these days!) and you want to make sure it will work for you 100% of the time.

For me personally I would be happy with like 200km range, that's enough to go to my off grid property and back with room to spare. Would be nice if more manufacturers offered more buying options to save money like a smaller battery pack or adding a gas range extender. To me that would be the best compromise for EVs to try to bring down prices, keep the battery small and just have a range extender. Even a 50km battery would be fine in this case as it would work for like 90% of scenarios such as going to work or doing errands around town, but you wouldn't get range anxiety.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I grew up using a GE Elec-trac riding mower, and my dad converted a motorcycle to electric at one point. I like the IDEA of an electric car, but I want a very basic one - no sensors or computers to record data to the builder. Crank windows, manual transmission. And I get to choose the batteries myself. Maybe I just need to build a go - cart, then work up to a car from there, or retrofit our old 2000 Metro to electric.

 

[jpiniero]

#1 is still the biggest problem around me. The Tesla SC network opening up to other makes this year will help but that is only V3 and newer units and all the ones in my state are V2. I still don't have any Electrify America stations in my state and would have to rely on a few unreliable Dealerships most of which are 50kw units to travel.

Thing is, from what I've seen, the rates (if you have to pay) are pricey. This one review I saw had it at 49 cents per kWh. That's going to be rough compared to $3 gas, esp in the cold. Remember that the Government is taking 40-50 cents of that $3 gas that (I assume?) the EV chargers aren't paying.

I assume the free chargers you see are mainly SV Techbros trying to fleece "Investors"/The Government and have no real business model.

 

[Kaido]

For people that go on family road trips I can see the need for lot of miles. A vehicle is a huge financial decision like buying a house (and practically in the same price range these days!) and you want to make sure it will work for you 100% of the time.

For me personally I would be happy with like 200km range, that's enough to go to my off grid property and back with room to spare. Would be nice if more manufacturers offered more buying options to save money like a smaller battery pack or adding a gas range extender. To me that would be the best compromise for EVs to try to bring down prices, keep the battery small and just have a range extender. Even a 50km battery would be fine in this case as it would work for like 90% of scenarios such as going to work or doing errands around town, but you wouldn't get range anxiety.

My buddy has a base Tesla Model 3 (200-something miles) & just rents an ICE vehicle when he goes on road trips a few times year. I do the same thing with Home Depot & just rent a truck or a van when I need it once in awhile.

 

[Kaido]

I grew up using a GE Elec-trac riding mower, and my dad converted a motorcycle to electric at one point. I like the IDEA of an electric car, but I want a very basic one - no sensors or computers to record data to the builder. Crank windows, manual transmission. And I get to choose the batteries myself. Maybe I just need to build a go - cart, then work up to a car from there, or retrofit our old 2000 Metro to electric.

That's one of my MAJOR hesitations about Tesla:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/

Two ex-employees said they weren’t bothered by the sharing of images, saying that customers had given their consent or that people long ago had given up any reasonable expectation of keeping personal data private. Three others, however, said they were troubled by it.

“It was a breach of privacy, to be honest. And I always joked that I would never buy a Tesla after seeing how they treated some of these people,” said one former employee.

Another said: “I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don't think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids.”

https://nypost.com/2023/04/06/tesla-employees-shared-private-scenes-of-intimacy-filmed-by-car-cameras-report/

Tesla employees shared customers’ private videos that were captured by the vehicles’ built-in cameras, including “scenes of intimacy,” “sexual wellness items” and a clip of a driver who approached his sedan while completely naked, according to a report.

Nine former Tesla employees at the electric car maker’s Bay Area offices told Reuters that the sensitive video clips, one of which was said to have been taken from the private vehicle of CEO Elon Musk, were shared in an internal messaging system between 2019 and 2022.

One former employee recalled seeing “embarrassing objects,” such as “certain pieces of laundry, certain sexual wellness items … and just private scenes of life that we really were privy to because the car was charging.”

The recordings also showed Tesla drivers in “embarrassing” situations, including road-rage incidents, crashes, and scenarios during which cars were parked and turned off.

“I sometimes wondered if these people know that we’re seeing that,” said one former employee.

 

[Ajay]

Refrigerate the battery coolant during charging

That is being tested using sub zero liquid cooling. Problem is, it takes are charging station with a sub zero cooling system and the connectors and tubing to recirculate that in the battery module. Odds are that may only make it into the niche transport area - the momentum for installed air cooled systems is just to high.

 

[Indus]

@pcgeek11 What year is your Highlander model? If it's 2001-2007 it's probably a lot cheaper/ easier to maintain than the newer ones.