Inexpensive Electric Cars May Arrive Sooner Than You Think 330
catchblue22 writes According to an article in MIT Technology Review, a new peer reviewed study suggests that battery-powered vehicles are close to being cost-effective for most people: "Electric cars may seem like a niche product that only wealthy people can afford, but a new analysis suggests that they may be close to competing with or even beating gas cars on cost. ... The authors of the new study concluded that the battery packs used by market-leading EV manufacturers like Tesla and Nissan cost as little as $300 per kilowatt-hour of energy in 2014. That's lower than the most optimistic published projections for 2015, and even below the average published projection for 2020. The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018. The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018. If that's true, it would push EVs across a meaningful threshold."
And redundancies come through faster as well! (Score:5, Funny)
The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018. The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018.
Perhaps some time after 2018 we will see editing of article summaries before they go to the front page as well? Nah, probably not.
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> *laughs at damn_registrar's howls of anguish*
Re:And redundancies come through faster as well! (Score:5, Funny)
The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018. The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018.
Perhaps some time after 2018 we will see editing of article summaries before they go to the front page as well? Nah, probably not.
Oh come on .. you are such a debbie downer. Don't you see the fantastic new technology that Dice is deploying to /.??? Duping the story used to take days, if not weeks. Now with the latest auto-dupe code they are pushing the limits and attempting to dupe the story within itself!
Mind blown!!!!!
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It was apparently a point of emphasis for the authors.
Re:And redundancies come through faster as well! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, and the authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018.
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1. Make one that isn't 100% fugly...build me one that is sleek, maybe a 2-seater sports car (like the early Tesla was) with performance speed/torque, and handling.
2. Make the range on a charge about 300-400 miles, approx what a tank of gas currently is. If I'm evacuating for a hurricane, I need to pack up and get out fast, and potentially sit in stop/go traffic at times. I can't have my safety riding on a
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I'd take a safe, 2 tandem seat, 45 mph max, 50 mile range, decent looking, GREAT environmental controls, under $10k car.
That's all I need 95% of the time. The other 5% I'll use gas. Right now the best economic car I can find is a Honda Fit.
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I think you need to do a little research about the way electric cars operate in stop & go traffic. There is no idling like with an ICE. It just shuts off when you stop.
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Wait an extra day or two and I'm sure the breeze will be enough to cool you off. :-) Or, leave a little earlier and drive at night. Hurricane warnings come DAYS in advance.
Stop and go traffic for hurricane evacuations are for people who wait to the last minute to go over the causeway.
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What the hell has happened to Slashdot?
It's been flooded by cowards moaning about conspiracy theories from the dark corners of a US conservative mind.
The authors found that batteries appear on track (Score:3, Interesting)
to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018.
The authors found that batteries appear on track to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018.
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to reach $230 per kilowatt-hour by 2018.
$230 per kilowatt-hour is a completely meaningless number. How much is it going to cost me to replace the battery pack. $1,000? $5,000? $10,000?
*THAT* is what's important.
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googling "tesla battery capacity" will tell you the Model S battery is 85 kWh. At $230/kWh that is $19,550. Seems to me the economics stays utterly prohibitive except for rich pricks.
And how many owners have had to replace their battery pack? This is not really an expense that owners plan to encounter, though it is an expense that goes in to making the car. That said, the $20k battery pack is a significant part of the cost of the drivetrain. You can't replace the drivetrain on a brand new BMW 3 series for $20k.
It might not be the best deal in motoring, but it is far from the worst. The reduction in cost also suggests that Tesla is on their way to producing a $30k car as promise
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You can't replace the drivetrain on a brand new BMW 3 series for $20k.
Well, maybe you could, but replacing the drive train is not normal maintenance, as would be replacing the battery in an EV. I have never replaced the drivetrain on any vehicle I have owned nor do I expect to have to.
Re: The authors found that batteries appear on tra (Score:4, Interesting)
People with older cars get new or rebuilt engines all the time. It's not that unusual, though usually it's done more for cars which hold their value better (like ones which have a lot of enthusiasts). There's even companies that specialize in selling fully remanufactured engines. They do cost a lot less than $20k though.
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A crate motor direct from the OEM can be pretty damn expensive, which is why those (third-party) specialist companies exist. Similarly, I'd fully expect a third-party remanufactured battery to cost a whole lot less than a new one from Tesla (i.e., a lot less than $20k).
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For a gas vehicle your correct and it's reasonable to have a drivable vehicle for 20+ years. I say this as I can find 20+ year old beaters in the local paper.
An EV on the other hand will not make it that long, this is great for the car companies killing of the used car market. But nobody is going to put 20k into a car thats is 8+ years old with 100k+ miles on it.
Re: The authors found that batteries appear on tra (Score:4, Informative)
replacing the drive train is not normal maintenance, as would be replacing the battery in an EV.
Replacing the battery is NOT "normal maintenance", and most EV owners will never need to do it. The Prius battery is warrantied for 150k miles, and many people have driven their cars much further than that, with no problems. These are for batteries made years ago. Battery tech has improved a lot recently, and new batteries being made today should have even longer lifetimes. Future batteries will be even better.
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replacing the drive train is not normal maintenance, as would be replacing the battery in an EV.
Replacing the battery is NOT "normal maintenance", and most EV owners will never need to do it. The Prius battery is warrantied for 150k miles, and many people have driven their cars much further than that, with no problems. These are for batteries made years ago. Battery tech has improved a lot recently, and new batteries being made today should have even longer lifetimes. Future batteries will be even better.
There are two factors to battery life, the first is the number of charge cycles and the second is the age of the battery. Over time the battery pack will lose capacity. For Prius owners, this process would be gradual and they likely wouldn't notice right away simply because the Prius is a hybrid.
I'm willing to bet that an analysis of older Prius vehicles would show that the battery pack has much less capacity that it did as it was new. Does this mean that it "needs" to be replaced? With a hybrid, it's l
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We in the cold climate of Canada experience lead-acid car batteries lasting a minimum of 7 years. The batteries are subject to subzero cold and even at that temperature, a 7 year old battery has enough cranking power to start the modern car. If the battery survives the -20C (about -15F), it will work though the summer.
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replacing the drive train is not normal maintenance, as would be replacing the battery in an EV.
Putting fossil fuel into your mode of transport wasn't normal 100 years ago either. Welcome to progress.
I have never replaced the drivetrain on any vehicle I have owned nor do I expect to have to.
That's because you're old. Young people will grow up with this as normal and you'll spend the rest of your days telling them to get off your lawn.
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You can't replace the drivetrain on a brand new BMW 3 series for $20k.
That may be true but that is not really relevant since the article is talking about "inexpensive" electric cars and a BMW is not usually what spring to mind when I think "inexpensive car". The questions you need to ask are: can you replace the drive train on a say a Ford Focus for $20k and how long will it last before I need to do that?
Since a Ford Focus costs less than $20k even in Canada the answer to the first question is that yes you can replace it for less than $20k (by buying a new car if necessar
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Cut out the FUD, you utter <REDACTED>. You're full of shit, and you either know it or didn't do even a cursory search. First hit for "tesla battery lifetime": http://www.plugincars.com/tesl... [plugincars.com]
100,000 miles (call it 160.000 KM) is at least eight years of driving for most people. At that point, the battery pack is not only quite functional, it's still got the vast majority of its initial capacity. Yes, the car has lost *some* of its range per charg
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You can't replace the drivetrain on a brand new BMW 3 series for $20k.
Hilariously, you could replace the drivetrain on a brand new Corvette for $20k. A whole LS7 crate motor from Summit is "only" $13k.
Re: The authors found that batteries appear on tra (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many owners have had to replace their battery pack? This is not really an expense that owners plan to encounter, though it is an expense that goes in to making the car. That said, the $20k battery pack is a significant part of the cost of the drivetrain. You can't replace the drivetrain on a brand new BMW 3 series for $20k.
Very, very few, as it turns out. The Toyotas seem to last about forever, and you know darn well that the haters will be braying about any Tesla failures.
Slashdot, once upon a time, would be agog about an electrical vehicle, Now the site is so reactionary, it's starting to read like Fox News for people who hate anything new.
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You have to consider the total cost of ownership, i.e. how much you are paying for petrol/diesel over the lifetime of the car. It's already reached the point where EVs are cheaper in the long run in countries where liquid fuel is more expensive than in the US, assuming you can live with the limitations of EV range and charge times. It's just that the up-front cost is higher.
It's the same situation as solar PV. The initial outlay puts people off, but over the lifetime of the panels they are bound to come out
Re: The authors found that batteries appear on tra (Score:4, Informative)
The tesla is a bad example. The 85w has a range over 300 miles.
My gasoline car has a range of 250 to 265 miles (280 pure highway).
Also, it presumes the old battery has zero value. I'm not sure that's true.
There's also some math problem since a tesla owner site says
http://my.teslamotors.com/it_I... [teslamotors.com]
"1. we know the cost to replace an 85 kwh battery is ~$12,000"
This is apparently with a trade in of the old battery...
Others in the same discussion mention 20 year life spans for well maintained batteries.
And others say that as long as the range exceeds 75 miles, it's usable for their daily driving needs ( so the tesla battery pack could lose 65% of it's capacity and still be fine. Some say 50 miles (which was typical of my usage for my ICE when I was working).
Just FYI...
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In the USA & Canada, a great many households have 2 (or more) cars. Many of my friends have ready access to 3 or 4 vehicles when you count adult children who live at home or nearby.
One family I'm very close with have 2 vans at home and regular use of either their son-in-law's car as he usually drives his pickup or his plumbing van or their younger daughter's midsize car as she prefers using a van when she has to ferry around her 3 kids who are 2, 5 & 9 yrs old.
During the warmer months, they'll take
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I get about 300 from a tank in normal driving (pure freeway driving is significantly better), but then I have more horsepower than a sane person needs (and yet, half of what I want).
The range on a new Tesla is plenty good, even allowing for headlights and other power drains, but I'd be wary of how it ages. If it fell to 120 or so at the end of the life of the battery pack, that would start to suck, If it stayed above 80% of new, I just can't see that being an issue often enough to matter.
Re: The authors found that batteries appear on tra (Score:4, Insightful)
All 85 kWH Model S cars have an 8-year, infinite mile warranty on battery & drivetrain. If you buy one today, you can drive the hell out of it worry-free, except for what it costs to replace tires, until 2023.
By then, Tesla should have one, possibly 2, Gigafactories in operation and the economics of EV batteries will be very different and in the driver's favor.
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By then, Tesla should have one, possibly 2, Gigafactories in operation and the economics of EV batteries will be very different and in the driver's favor.
Or other possibilities, like Tesla went bankrupt in a way that they don't honor that warranty. But here's hoping you're right.
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If you want a 300 mile battery pack, yes.
A 100 mile battery pack for a car with the same level of streamlining would be $6,5k.
For that cost, versus a gas car you get:
* A simpler - and potentially cheaper in mass production - drivetrain
* A drivetrain that's far easier to boost to very high power levels, which with a gas drivetrain costs a lot and requires a very large, heavy engine
* A drivetrain that actually gets more efficient the more powerful it gets, not less (greater max power =
Re: The authors found that batteries appear on tra (Score:5, Informative)
At the moment, the Tesla Model S battery pack is definitely expensive and likely costs consumers about $25,000 for the 85 kWh battery pack. It is likely to last somewhere around 300,000 to 500,000 miles. People are basically paying between $0.05 and $0.08 per mile for it. At a national average of $0.12 per kWh and you get 3 miles/kWh, the electricity cost per mile is about $0.04. With special time of use rates, it is possible to pay for electricity at half that price. Which means $0.02 per mile. That means the cost of electricity + the battery pack = $0.07 to 0.12 per mile.
Assuming super unleaded costs $2.50/gallon, here are some comparisons:
BMW M5, 16 mpg combined, $0.16 per mile.
Jaguar XF, 23 mpg combined, $0.11 per mile
Usually where electricity is expensive, gasoline is also expensive.
Of course, if you are doing this kind of comparison, you are basically removing $25,000 from the price of the car and placing it under the energy/fuel column. So looking at total cost of ownership makes the most sense. Most people aren't yet used to looking at the TCO for a vehicle so electric cars look more expensive up front but if you examine TCO, you'll see that, in many cases, they are less expensive.
Don't forget the residual value of the battery! (Score:2)
Looking at your figures, you should probably add in that there's resale value to even an old battery. Not sure what it is, but it seems that Tesla has a core charge of around $12k for one, which indicates some things.
Anyone watch Who Killed The Electric Car? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anyone watch Who Killed The Electric Car? (Score:4, Informative)
One thing in particular is that they found the battery manufacturers were not at fault - at least not as much as the other "suspects"
False [wikipedia.org]. (read also following section) In fact, they concluded exactly the opposite of what you claim: they stated that battery manufacturers and patent holders were at fault, as much as the other "suspects".
Wear Components are Less, Too ... (Score:2)
With all electric there are 1000-2000 fewer wear components in the engine-drive train.
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With all electric there are 1000-2000 fewer wear components in the engine-drive train.
Nonsense. There are only 1000-2000 fewer components total, and that's assuming the EV doesn't have any gearbox at all.
Missing the point. (Score:3, Interesting)
Although cheaper helps, there are still numerous disadvantages to electrics (range anxiety, ability to recharge cross-country, cold weather conditions, etc.) that aren't up to parity with ICs.
Even if Teslas were $10,000, they'd still be unsuitable for a large portion of drivers. Until infrastructure problems get addressed, or manufacturers get a clue and start incorporating range extenders (I so long for a series hybrid), electrics will be on the fringes of the market.
Although when these guys:
http://wrightspeed.com/ [wrightspeed.com]
start to retrofit autos, that could mark the critical mass to finally push electrics mainstream.
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Most electrics are bought as a 2nd car, since a vast majority of people don't driver further then 50 miles a day. So the range anxiety may be a moot thing, since lots of people use their gas car (or choose to fly) rather then worry about driving their electric car across the country..
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There is only two driving trips in the past three years that a Tesla would not worke
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They'd be more common than half if they were that cheap. Though it would probably be ten years after they reached that price-point before all the gas cars that were going to be replaced by them were actually replaced....
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I think that Toyota hydrogen fuel cell is far more practical and cleaner (because electric batteries are charged with coal fire plant electricity made 500+ miles away from where it is used).
Toyota is offering fuel cell engine patent use for free until 2020.
Range is good. Output from engine is water vapor. Clean as a whistle. Energy is created and used together rather than created, shipped over hundreds of miles of wires then used to charge.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
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They use electricity by way of electrolysis. This is a hideously inefficient process.
That is wrong. Electrolysis might not be that efficient, but it is not particular inefficient either. It is certainly far far more efficient than burning gasoline in an ICE.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that Toyota hydrogen fuel cell is far more practical and cleaner (because electric batteries are charged with coal fire plant electricity made 500+ miles away from where it is used).
Really? Hydrogen? Ok. First off, hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source. Most hydrogen for transportation these days comes as a bi-product of fossil fuels. So that's not really so clean.
So what if we make the hydrogen from H2O using electrolysis...that means we split 2 H2O molecules into 1 O2 and 2 H2 molecules. There is going always going to be some heat generated in this process, which is by definition waste.
The real and fundamental flaw in this process comes next. In order to transport and use the hydrogen, you have to compress it. This takes energy. Extra energy. And when you compress a gas, it gets warmer. This is a fundamental law of physics. So we have compressed hot gas. What happens to that heat energy? It will certainly not be used to power the car. It will likely be wasted.
Next, you have to transport the compressed hydrogen gas. This also takes energy. Energy that will be lost.
Another large problem with hydrogen gas is that the molecules are small. Why is that a problem? Because it will be difficult to contain the gas. It will tend to escape. The gas will be lost in compression, in transport, and in storage. It is likely that if you fuel your hydrogen car up and park it, you will lose most of your fuel to the air in several days.
Finally, we have to change the energy in the hydrogen back into electrical energy to power the electric motors. The efficiency of fuel cells is an engineering problem, but I suspect there is some intractable physics in there that will cap the efficiency. Let's assume a best case scenario of perhaps 50% efficiency for the cells. That is still a lot of waste. However if you factor in the losses from electrolysis, compression, storage as well, you will have an overall efficiency less than 50%. Probably quite a bit less. So let's say for the sake of argument that the entire process is 30% efficient, which I suspect is generous.
It is well known that the electricity transmission system is highly efficient. Some easy research should tell you that the transmission system is more than 90% efficient. When we charge a battery, there are come losses. But they aren't that high. Let's assume the charging system is 80% efficient. Overall then, that process would be 72% efficient (I think it is higher than that actually).
So, if you have 100J of energy that you wish to use to drive the electric motors in a car, you can use hydrogen, and get less than 30J to the motors, or you can use the electrical grid, and get 70J to the motors. Honestly, why would you use hydrogen? Especially since the fuel cells would be complicated, expensive, and of unknown reliability. Hydrogen as a fuel is flawed at the level of fundamental physics. These problems cannot be engineered away.
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I really don't understand this hostility towards hydrogen.
It is hostility based on its physics, based on the simple fact that it will be a dead end. No technological breakthrough, no engineering project, no amount of effort or creative thought will change the fundamental lack of efficiency in this method of energy storage. It is wasteful of energy and will lengthen the time for our society to move to electric transportation. Governments will dump large amounts of money into it. Corporations will use it as their way of satisfying governmental requirements for g
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A) An electric car with a petrol-powered generator on board to extend the range.
or
B) An electric car with a hydrogen fuel cell to extend the range.
If you're concerned that there are loopholes in the green laws, get the laws changed, rather than banning technologies because they create a loophole. That's like banning the internet because you might download copyrighted materials.
Also, I have yet to see a hydrogen powered car that isn't an electric car.
You want to talk about physics probl
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And the hydrogen used in a hydrogen fuel cell is made how exactly?
You do know that only a moderate, slowly decreasing percentage of energy production in the western world is done with coal?
You also do know that the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline in hydrogen costs more or less the same price as gasoline? At least in Germany, so I assume in the USA the equivalent costs about twice as much.
So right now hydrogen is a nice thing, but expensive.
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Tesla has been doing their share for charging, at least for their own autos, The speed of deployment of the Supercharger network is impressive given the relatively small size of the company. I believe that the current availability in America is almost 200 locations with usually 4 - 8 charging bays each and plans to double that number by Fall 2016.
They've also installed hundreds of 80A chargers capable of 10-20 kW at restaurants, malls & hotels.
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range anxiety, ability to recharge cross-country, cold weather conditions
Here is a blog [blogspot.ca] about someone's trip in a Tesla across the US in winter. I think that pretty much takes care of all of your points. But you might also be interested in the fact that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D beating [youtube.com] a snowmobile in a drag race on ice. And for your convenience, here is a google search [google.ca] with the query "Tesla cross country road trips".
I'm not sure why you have been marked "interesting" when your post is counter-factual or at least deceptive.
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Because I know how to read specifications, and have some idea of what extreme temperatures do to batteries?
From the blog you list-
"The car was very cold and had only 210 miles of range in the battery. We knew the actual range would be much less due to cold weather and starting out with a cold interior and battery. I did not know how much range this would cost, as we have always pre-conditioned the car before leaving. In this case, our first leg of the day to the next supercharger was only 128.6 miles per
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Series hybrids are a terrible idea. See the BMW i3. It has worse mileage than most comparable cars. Its speed on petrol is limited, and the fuel tank is too small to be useful.
An electric drivetrain costs in the region of 30% of the energy that the engine puts in. Stuff an 8-speed modern automatic in there instead, and you keep the engine at almost the ideal RPM at all times. That drive train will have close to zero loss. Or put an extra electric motor in (two in total) and you get a variable ratio gearbox
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It's absolutely true that there are things that electrics are not suited for. Just as any car has it's gives and takes whether you use a car, truck,van, or whatever.
But I'm not sure what you call 'the fringes'. A huge population of people only drive a few dozen miles a day, then park their car at home over night. Almost anyone who lives with a spouse also probably is in a household with two or more cars as it is.
I don't think I know anyone who goes cross country more then once a year. The only people that e
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If the difference in list price of the expensive to the super-expensive Tesla is only $10,000; I would expect that at least 30% of that price would be extra profit for Tesla. Kind of like the gold Apple Watch. So their cost is probably less than $250/kWh.
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In addition to the other points mentioned elsewhere, the 85 kWh Tesla includes access to their charging stations, which is valued at $2,000.
So then where are.. (Score:2)
besides the fact i have a personal grievance with how pollution is advertised with electric vehicles the main thing holding t
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There are no 2-dollar iPhone batteries because you can't (officially) replaces the iPhone's batteries :)
You're also dealing with different types of batteries here. The chemistry used in consumer electronics isn't the same as those used in (most) electric cars... only Tesla uses commodity cells.
An EV battery is also pretty much the equivalent to buying in bulk. If you purchased 500 iPhone batteries (~27kWh worth) at once you might possibly get them for $2 each.
=Smidge=
GM claims (Score:3)
.
It's why I didn't get a Tesla, much as I admire them - and even Bob Lutz gives Elon credit for making it possible for him to shepherd the Volt through GM's BS management.
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Gets 40 mpg (good gasoline really matters to the number here, junk low octane ethanol gas is more like 26 mpg) on gasoline...I just don't think about it any more.
Have you thought about how a VW Passat TDI 2.0 wagon gets 50 mpg?
battery maintenance isn't so bad.. (Score:2)
When I was last shopping for a car (two years ago), I had narrowed it down to either a used Prius or a use VW TDI. I chose the VW only because I found a good one available locally at a decent price. I did a hair amount of research on the issue of battery reliability. What I found is...batteries are lasting far longer than their warranties, which are pretty long. I also found out that it's likely that a single cell will fail before the whole pack. The dealer may tell you that you need a whole new battery and
Aren't Teslas (Score:2)
Enabling for off-grid h ouses, too. (Score:2)
Solar generation can be had, for reasonably sunny sites, for abut $/kW, which puts it ahead of grid. Wind, since the advent of neodymium permanent-magnet alternators in kWish sizes, is also becoming competitive (and a solar/wind combo tends to balance nicely against available load. Alternators are electronics and the Moore's Law improvements are also bringing them down (though the economy of scale isn't there, yet.)
The big missing piece has been a high-capacity, long-lived, low-toxicity energy storage sys
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In this context I'd think inexpensive means less expensive to own than the equivalent gasoline or diesel powered vehicle.
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Exactly. A person can buy an old inefficient junker for $500, but if you're having to pump $1500 of gasoline into it every year, and you have to swap out the transmission, then later the timing belt, then later the engine, and on and on.... you're not exactly paying just $500. It's total cost of ownership that matters:
* Purchase price
* Insurance
* Fuel costs
* Maintenance
* Resale
Electric cars perform poorly on purchase price, miscellaneous on insurance, excellent on fu
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as a general rule, vehicles with low operating costs retain value better than those with high operating costs
In general I think that's true, but I wonder about whether it applies to the special case of EVs in 2015-2020, given the current rapid evolution of battery manufacturing technology. For example, what do you suppose will happen to the resale value of an 80-mile-range Nissan Leaf if/when Chevy comes out with their 200-mile-range Chevy Bolt at a similar price point?
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Electricity is not free, my friend.
It is cheaper than gasoline.
The price has been increasing steadily at a rate well above inflation where I am
Where is that? Most electricity in America comes from natural gas, which has fallen in price by 80% in the last ten years.
if electric cars start selling I expect it to double or triple in the next 5 years.
Electric cars, which mostly charge with cheap nighttime base load power, make electricity production more efficient and more profitable, so prices should go down, not up.
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Where is that? Most electricity in America comes from natural gas, which has fallen in price by 80% in the last ten years.
That is nonsense.
Gas prices might have fallen, but I doubt it, electric power prices certainly have not. The biggest joke is the claim that most electric energy is produced by gas. Obviously most is produced by all the other "non gas" sources together, and even in direct comparison gas is only second with 27%
Super easy to google ... btw: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/... [eia.gov]
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"Electric cars may seem like a niche product that only wealthy people can afford"
That's because it's exactly what they are, and exactly why adoption is utter shit.
Adoption is actually going quite well out here in sunny California. Last month, a whole bunch of people (part of a group-buy) managed to get Fiat 500e electric cars for a monthly lease of $83 per month. There were some extenuating circumstances here (federal subsidies, state subsidies, etc) but still -- a lot of electric cars hit the roads over the period of a few weeks.
Electric cars certainly don't make sense for everyone, and if you compare them solely based on range vs. a gas car, the electric car clearl
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I spent some time in CA last May, a week each in Anaheim and San Francisco. I can't say that I saw many EVs in Anaheim but San Fran - un-freakin'-believable!!!
Unless you were keeping an accurate count, it seemed that EVs were nearly 1/3 of the vehicles in most parts of the city.
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How many of them still have a gas powered car?
I'm going to go ahead and assume it's all of them.
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No, it's dead simple to wrap your brain around it. However, it just doesn't make sense to buy two cars when one car can do the job of both. This is why most people don't bother with electric. The Electric car has to be able to completely replace the gas car and in its present format (at least, for the affordable cars) it's not possible to do that.
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Tens of thousands of people per year can apparently afford Teslas just fine, including lots of people in Norway.
Just because you're too broke to afford them doesn't mean that no one is.
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Wow. Just, wow. Aside from the fact that these people are getting subsidised out the ass, you really present yourself as a completely clueless asshat.
10,000 people buying an electric is not making a significant difference in the face of the millions of gas powered cars out there.
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That's not what I read. What I read was that EVs are exempt from the huge taxes that gas cars are levied with (like 100% of the purchase price), so that makes them affordable compared to gas cars.
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No, it's not equivalent at all. You're claiming that the government "pays" people to buy these cars. It does not. It merely exempts them from paying a tax which gas-car buyers have to pay.
Governments do this all the time. Here in the US, we have taxes on cigarettes. This is to punish people for smoking. Does this mean that the government is paying me, a non-smoker, to avoid smoking? Of course not. I'm not getting any money from the government to avoid cigarettes. I am, however, saving money by not
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People praise Elon musk for leading this charge towards Electric cars but if nobody can afford them he isn't changing anything.
He changed a lot. Before Tesla, EV were seen as wimpy cars for greenies. But Elon made them cool. They are the muscle cars of the 21st century. There is nothing wimpy about driving a Tesla, and that is important if you want Joe Sixpack to buy an EV.
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About 3% US market share [greencarreports.com] of similarly-priced vehicles ($25K+) in just 4 years, despite many models being unavailable outside a handful of key states.
That's a far cry from "utter shit" for market penetration of a product that's significantly out of the norm and facing strong opposition.
=Smidge=
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That's quite a bad assumption. I think most people are perfectly capable of managing their finances and making informed choices, and that your statement is mind-blowingly stupid. What kind of idiot comes up with an entire theory based on witnessing one couple?
The fact remains that 80 miles of range isn't enough for a lot of people.
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...and they all suck. Bad range, and terrible charge. People continue to buy gas cars because these issues are still not addressed in cars they could potentially afford.
Yes, but they suck quite a bit less than the electric cars of just a few years ago. The state of the art is advancing rapidly; every year there are more EVs and they become competitive for more use cases. The writing is on the wall.
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I agree, they're better than they were, but the fact remains that they still suck.
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Most people don't need the range in reality. They only need it once or twice a year. They are paying a healthy premium- WAY over the cost of renting a vehicle for that once or twice a year that they need the range.
Yes, because I really want to have to rent a car that's capable of long distance travel every time I want to actually travel a long distance... when I could just buy one instead.
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"My wife and I made a Nissan Leaf our second vehicle."
And therein lies the problem. The way Electric cars are right now you really wind up needing two vehicles. This reinforces my point that it isn't solving the core issue, and that it's way out of the price range of most regular people.
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...and why exactly do you think people are offloading them? Because they're shitty cars that don't cover a lot of edge cases. Part of the reason people buy electrics is because of the low maintenance and high longevity. The fact that there's a large number of people trying to get rid of them doesn't speak favorably in that regard.
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A gasoline engine is 25% efficient, an electric engine runs at 90%, and doesn't need to idle.
A modern direct-injection gasoline engine gets close to 40% efficiency, and diesels close to 50%. If you're worried about idling, add a stop-start system like many European cars have.
Re:other stuff matters also? I claim it does (Score:5, Informative)
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Electric cars (the ones you can get right now) are terrible when it is really cold or really hot.
Really? Were you aware that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers [cnn.com]. I think Norway is a cold country? Here is blog [blogspot.ca] about someone's trip across the US in winter. Here is a video [youtube.com] of a Tesla P85D passing pulled over SUV's after a bad snowstorm. I don't see any blankets.
Oh, and Californians buy many Tesla cars. California is kind of hot, isn't it?
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Oh, and Californians buy many Tesla cars. California is kind of hot, isn't it?
Not really. There are some really hot places but few people live there, especially people who can afford a Tesla. Try on AZ or NM for some heat where people live.
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When it is merely cold, like -20C, electric cars are great. You arrive to a preheated and defrosted car and there are no problems starting the engine. 3kW of heating is quite sufficient when it includes heated seats and heated steering wheel, and that takes 3 hours to use 10% of the capacity of a Tesla 85kWh car. At slightly higher temperatures you can get a lot of benefit from the heat pump instead.
Now, lots of electric cars do not have suitably designed heating systems or batteries to handle -20C reliably