GM Reverses All-In EV Strategy to Bring Back Plug-In Hybrids (thedrive.com) 179
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Drive:
General Motors was one of the first to foray into plug-in hybrids, but it abandoned them amid the hype for electric vehicles. Now that automakers are running up against the current limits of EV demand though, they're looking for other ways to curb fleet emissions. In GM's case, that way is an about-face and return to PHEVs after completely dismissing their potential just a few years ago.
"Our forward plans include bringing our plug-in hybrid technology to select vehicles in North America," said GM CEO Mary Barra during a Q4 earnings call transcribed by Automotive News. Barra added that GM still aimed to eliminate its light-duty vehicles' emissions by 2035, but said that hybrids will fill in the gaps where needed "from a compliance perspective." She didn't specify which segments they may occupy, but going by GM's history, they'll probably be brilliantly engineered and utterly neglected by marketing...
GM's EV ambitions have been tempered by recalls and lukewarm product launches such as the GMC Hummer EV and aforementioned ">Blazer EV. Now, with EV demand potentially plateauing (at least for now), automakers are returning to the proven, less compromising option of hybrids.
"Our forward plans include bringing our plug-in hybrid technology to select vehicles in North America," said GM CEO Mary Barra during a Q4 earnings call transcribed by Automotive News. Barra added that GM still aimed to eliminate its light-duty vehicles' emissions by 2035, but said that hybrids will fill in the gaps where needed "from a compliance perspective." She didn't specify which segments they may occupy, but going by GM's history, they'll probably be brilliantly engineered and utterly neglected by marketing...
GM's EV ambitions have been tempered by recalls and lukewarm product launches such as the GMC Hummer EV and aforementioned ">Blazer EV. Now, with EV demand potentially plateauing (at least for now), automakers are returning to the proven, less compromising option of hybrids.
New Slogan: (Score:3)
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To whit: the Hummer EV has a 250-kWh battery pack. That's 3x the size of an entry-level compact sedan, like a Model 3 or Ioniq 6. The Hummer was designed for extremity (or obscenity?), true, but it's hard to get around the fact that big vehicles require big (and expensive) packs.
Re:New Slogan: (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you need a SUV? Or a pick up if you don't work with it? That's a mystery that no one is able to solve to me.
You don't own a house, do you?
For people that own their own home, and do even a minimal amount of DIY improvements and repairs, it's real nice to have a truck to make a run to the hardware store. Every summer is a series of little bits of this and that which need a bag of mortar or cement, bits of this and that, kitchen appliances, yard tools, and all kinds of things that people don't want in the trunk of their car due to the mess or odors, or just won't fit. Then when winter comes it's nice to have a truck to get through snow. Maybe you don't have the climate for snow but it's still likely to have cold and rain. If there's a bit of flooding from the rain then having a truck that sits up higher is likely safer, even better if there's AWD/4WD for slippery pavement. If it's merely a matter of being cold outside then having a big V6 or V8 to warm the cabin is really nice.
The higher center of gravity on a truck or SUV is only a concern if you drive like an idiot, so don't drive like an idiot.
Re:New Slogan: (Score:5, Interesting)
I see the benefits of a larger vehicle for someone who does a good deal of DIY, but on this:
Then when winter comes it's nice to have a truck to get through snow... If it's merely a matter of being cold outside then having a big V6 or V8 to warm the cabin is really nice.
I drove a FWD car with a little 1.5L I4 for about a decade in cold, snowy, northern bit of the Midwest. If you know how to safely drive in it the snow/ice were never a problem, and I definitely never had a problem getting the cabin warm. I'm not saying there are never situations where you'd need a bigger vehicle to handle road/weather conditions, but you're getting into more and more extreme edge cases.
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It very much depends on where you are. In the flat midwest, you can get away with a front wheel drive small car. In the mountains, not so much. And if you actually need to be on the roads in the snow in the south, forget it, the car isn't going anywhere.
I enjoyed a week and a half off last month, because my front wheel drive car was not leaving my driveway. The city doesn't plow the streets here. Normally that's not a big deal, snow is gone in a few days, it's really rare that it lasts longer. No, I d
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And if you actually need to be on the roads in the snow in the south, forget it, the car isn't going anywhere.
Going by the news footage of the absolute carnage that Midwesterners love to laugh at every time the South gets half an inch of snow, I don't think the people driving SUVs/pickups are doing much better than anyone else :-)
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The problem in the South is twofold. The first is that the conditions under which we get winter weather favor sheet ice on the roads. The second is that no matter how well you are doing, eventually you get taken out by an idiot in an old Trans-AM who is convinced that no matter what the problem is, the answer is floor it to power out of the spin.
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This. The fantasy of requiring power to drive around is just that, a complete fantasy. We've taken our Mitsubishi Pajero with it's 2.0L I4 through some of the toughest deserts of Australia, up some serious dunes, up some serious mountains as well.
A big engine is something for towing big loads. Get your V6 turbo diesel for dragging shit around the farm or towing your yacht to the boatclub, but don't pretend you need it for any normal situation, even if your version of "normal" is driving through snow and ice
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I drove a FWD car with a little 1.5L I4 for about a decade in cold, snowy, northern bit of the Midwest. If you know how to safely drive in it the snow/ice were never a problem
I have a small AWD coupe with snow tires and it is a blast to drive on ice or in light snow. Can't handle snowdrifts though, for that you need ground clearance.
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. If it's merely a matter of being cold outside then having a big V6 or V8 to warm the cabin is really nice.
That's not how anything works. At all.
Any liquid-cooled engine produces far more than enough heat to warm the cabin. There is a whole bigass radiator in the cooling system to shed that heat. Your heater core is a tiny little version of the same thing, and it's in the air plenum. The limiting factors for how much heat you can get into the cabin are a) the size of the heater core and b) the temperature at which the thermostat opens and allows coolant to flow to the radiator. The size of the engine doesn't eve
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I'm actually looking for an old pickup this summer because we are taking on more house responsibilities ourselves. I need to haul plants, buy and haul a mower, landscaping material. I plan to redo a room in the basement this year and will need to haul materials like sheetrock, carpet, a 80+"TV, etc. I wish I could get one of those little Japanese trucks but they are not legal in my state.
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It's nice to have snow tires to get through snow.
Trucks, due to their lack of weight in the back, tend to suck in the snow. Especially 2WD.
I say this as someone who lives in Minnesota.
I do find a truck useful for DIY, but I just keep an old one around for the few times a year that I use it. But if I had to buy a replacement, I'd strongly consider a regular vehicle with a good tow rating and a trailer. Especially with how ridicul
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It's nice to have snow tires to get through snow.
It's nice to have snow tires, 4WD, and nearly a foot of ground clearance. My old tires were "all terrain" but my new ones are "all season", and the new tires appear to have improved driving in the snow. Maybe it's just old tire were that worn, or maybe I'm biased because the tires cost me a lot of money and I need to justify that somehow. I could not really do an A/B test since tire damage happening in the summer meant I got new tires with a long period between driving in snow with the different tires.
Trucks, due to their lack of weight in the back, tend to suck in the snow. Especially 2WD.
FW
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Why do you need a SUV? Or a pick up if you don't work with it? That's a mystery that no one is able to solve to me.
You don't own a house, do you?
I own a house. I don't need a SUV.
Many people who don't need giant vehicles for their day to day life don't really need them... but some do. SUVs have basically taken over much of the market that used to be purchases of mini-vans, much used by people who shepherd gangs of kids to soccer games, football games, etc.; and mini-vans themselves took over the role that station-wagons, now a nearly extinct car type, played in the 60s.
In addition to taking your kids to cello lessons, a reason for car companies
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For people that own their own home, and do even a minimal amount of DIY improvements and repairs, it's real nice to have a truck to make a run to the hardware store.
I own my own house, own no car at all.
I redid my garden. Frankly there was far too much for a truck anyway, so the deliveries and waste removals were done with a hiab.
Every summer is a series of little bits of this and that which need a bag of mortar or cement, bits of this and that, kitchen appliances, yard tools, and all kinds of things that p
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Look at the trucks that Americans actually buy. Shrinking beds, expanding cabins. The new Cybertruck can't even fit an adult bicycle in the bed.
We have large bags we put in the boot to take all the tools and bags of cement and soil. Contains the mess and smell, and means we can own a much better and more practical car. Oh, and bike racks.
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What's the argument for ANYTHING people want? They fucking want it.
People having children cause way more environmental damage than anything else humans do. If humans stopped having them, all this environmental stuff would be absolutely solved inside of 100 years. Why do people keep having them? Because they want them.
Disclaimer: I have one 7 year old child.
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I wanted to argue but you're technically correct... the BEST kind of correct.
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I've had my Jeep for 17 years. It will almost certainly be the last vehicle I own.
How many vehicles have you gone through in the same period of time?
How many vehicles do you think people typically go through in the same period of time?
How much extra environmental cost is there in going through multiple vehicles in the same period of times
Yeah?
Now fuck off.
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Just wanted to add that I had my PREVIOUS vehicle, an Isuzu Trooper, for 12 years before that, giving me 2 vehicles in the past 29 years (and counting!)...with most of that in Alaska.
So, no, I'm not gonna drive some little shit box and will leave me stuck on the side of the road so my family can freeze to death. And I'm certain the total environmental cost of my two vehicles beats that of all the vehicles most people go through in the same amount of time.
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I'd be curious to see the ROA of a 1990's Toyota corolla still on the road today (including maintenance costs) compared to the expected costs of keeping a Tesla on the road for 30 years.
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It's only 77k miles if your electricity is only coming from coal - like most of China.
It's closer to 20k in most of the world, as low as 8400 miles if you happen to live in Norway or somewhere else where it's all hydro/renewables.
Re: New Slogan: (Score:2)
Yeah, I meant to say "in the worst case" but forgot.
Then I got modded down, wonder if it was because of that or because I said NICE things about EVs, no way to tell on this shithole
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Snow. That's why I own a SUV.
I've owned an A4 and a X5. The A4 was a better car for my life except for winter time. Sure it handled fine on snowy and ice but the problem was simple ground clearance. My X5 has more ground clearance and can move around this winter. My wife's Mazda couldn't make it out of the driveway due to the difference in a clean driveway and an unclean road.
I'd rather not own a SUV, but nobody is making a sedan with SUV height.
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Why do you need a SUV? Or a pick up if you don't work with it?
There are plenty of reason to have a SUV or truck.
Camping/glamping, boating, hunting, weekend trips, snow, off-roading and as others have mentioned home DYI or whatever you might need to load in the vehicle without making structural changes to your car.
You need room for coolers, dry foods, backpacks, tents, suitcases, towing a camper, firewood or whatever you want to bring on your trip. Your Audio would have you stacking crap on your roof and you still couldn't fit everything that a single person mig
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There's a seriously warped jack-booted totalitarian attitude on display in people who are eager to decide what other people NEED and then want to prevent others from having what they're presumed not to NEED. "Why do you NEED that SUV?
https://www.ghsa.org/resources... [ghsa.org]
SUVs are killing people by the thousands, and it's trending up sharply.
Somewhere along the line "my right to swing my fists ends at your face" turned into "imma punch you in the face ass hole".
Wise choice. (Score:2, Interesting)
A big problem with going all BEV is a shortage of raw material to make batteries. It's not that there isn't enough material in the ground, it's that it will take years to ramp up production to meet demand. There just isn't enough batteries to go around, so it's make BEVs with just horrible range or make PHEVs so that people aren't plagued with range anxiety should they dare get on any interstate highway.
Then is a possible problem of not having enough public chargers to meet demand. I know people will poi
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> I know a family that has a PHEV and it has only a 2 gallon fuel tank since it sips fuel and is expected to run mostly on electricity.
What PHEV has a 2 gallon fuel tank? Name the make and model.
99% of your comment history is shitting on BEVs and renewables. Almost like it was your job.
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Not your antagonist, but
it's prob the BMW i3 REx series hybrid https://www.motortrend.com/fea... [motortrend.com]
It physically has a 2.4 gal tank but for the first several years the US models were electronically limited to 1.9 gal (i.e. it wouldn't use the last .5 gallons) because of some laws mandating that for certain credits the gas range had to be less than the battery range. (though you could reprogram them).
Also because it's series only it only gets 31mpg on gas which is "ok", not great. Still a pretty interesting
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The BMW i3 REX had some reliability issues due to the ICE too. It was in many ways the worst of both worlds. Small battery, small tank, all the maintenance of a fossil car and then some.
Battery prices have come down to a point where it's not really worth it, the cost of the ICE is similar or more than a battery with equivalent range, and that's before you get to maintenance.
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A family member drove a REx-equipped i3. The mechanical problems she had all stemmed from the REx going weeks/months without being turned on (as you'd expect given the usage patterns of 99% of drivers, in a BEV with even ~100 miles of range). ICEs don't like that very much.
Re:Wise choice. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem wasn't even primarily the capacity of the fuel tank. The main issue was that the REx couldn't maintain the charge of the battery travelling at 70MPH.
That wouldn't be totally catastrophic if you could flip on the range extender on when your battery was nearly full in anticipation of a long trip (you'd still be able to drive for hundreds of miles, stopping every 2-3hours for 1.9 gallons of gas). But, the same silly regulations that made them put an electronic limit on the capacity of the fuel tank also made them disable the ability to manually turn on the REx. You had to wait for it to automatically turn itself on at something like 5-10% charge, which would only let you drive at 70mph for a short time while the battery slowly ticked down, until some point you got capped at something like 60mph.
This could all be changed with an app and a bluetooth OBD port scanner. It certainly raised some eyebrows from my family member who drove a rEX-equipped i3 when I told her that I could make her fuel tank bigger with a software update.
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The real question is why is the US so far behind Europe?
Europe has a much wider selection of EVs on the market, and much better charging infrastructure. Companies are racing to install even more chargers, and the ones they put in are higher power than American models.
Maybe it's not just EVs. The US market can be weird sometimes. For example, most American teenagers have an iPhone, and its market share overall is much higher in the US. Europe has much more diversity in its smartphone market.
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Europe has a much wider selection of EVs on the market, and much better charging infrastructure. Companies are racing to install even more chargers, and the ones they put in are higher power than American models.
I can think of plenty of reasons.
There's not the same kind of option to drive long distances in Europe vs. USA so less "range anxiety". It's a real short drive for most people in Europe before hitting a large body of water or the unfriendly border of Russia. Certainly people can, and have, driven long distances in Europe but that's less common because of the geography.
Fuel costs more in Europe. Taxes is a cause, as is the need to ship fuel in rather than in the USA were it moves by pipeline.
A bit of both
Re:Wise choice. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy the "no long distance travel" argument. You can easily drive well in excess of the longest range EV in Europe, in a single country. More importantly, I regularly hear people who have never owned an EV complain about sub 800 mile range, saying they will wait for one that offers that before switching.
Also, if long distance travel isn't such an issue in Europe, why is the charging infrastructure that enables long distance travel so much better? Why are companies clamouring to install high power chargers if the market is small?
Apple may be an American company, but so is Google.
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Are you serious? Ask someone from the UK if they would be okay with having a 50 mile a daily driving commute and see what response you get. Then remember that many Americans have 2-3x that commute. Ask your UK friend how close they live to a petrol station, I bet you get an answer of less than a mile if they're in town, less than 5 if they are in the country. Then remember many Americans live 10x that far from a gas station, let alone a charging station. Yes, they do occasionally drive long distances.
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I actually have a close friend who does a 50 mile (each way) commute to work, in an EV.
Even 3x that, 150 miles, is well within the daily range of many affordable EVs.
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"Most people" do not have a 75 mile commute one-way. They are definitely out there, but that is well above the average American who lives ~40 miles from work and has an average commute time of 27 minutes.
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I can get a flight from London to Edinburgh for £30 return. It's cost-competitive with charging an EV at public fast chargers even if you're travelling with 2-3 people and pay Ryanair their pound of flesh to check a large bag.
Factor in time savings and depreciation of your car and budget airlines become serious competitors to driving at ranges beyond a single EV charge.
And, tbf, this all applies to ICEVs (if not more so given the cost of gas/petrol). People simply drive longer distances less oft
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That's an 800 mile round trip. Assuming you really can get a return flight for £30, you still need to get to and from the airport, twice. As you say, baggage on top.
Even with the really expensive charging networks, I think you would struggle to save money by flying. You might want to do it for other reasons, like not wanting to do an 8 hour drive.
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Isn't 240V service pretty standard in most US homes? For appliances that need it. That said, even 120V service is more than enough to cover most people's daily commute, and then some.
Google makes the Pixel line of phones and tablets, as well as earbuds and speakers.
Maybe it's down to peer pressure. I hear that US schools are pretty brutal, and anything that helps a child fit in is probably going to be popular.
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Isn't 240V service pretty standard in most US homes?
Yes, but it is split-phase, and so providing 120VAC to the common electrical outlets in a house, outlets often rated for 15 amps but a "continuous load" like an EV charger isn't supposed to draw more than 80% or 12 amps. In Europe most outlets would be 240VAC, and be rated for something like 13 amps, 16 amps, maybe higher. Whichever the case there's going to be more power to a common outlet than in the USA, roughly double the power in most every case.
There are certainly 240VAC outlets in US homes but it w
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When people in the UK get chargers installed, they usually have a new 32A circuit taken off their consumer unit, what you guys call a breaker board.
If they have other high power devices like an electric shower or cooker, they simply have a system that allocates power dynamically. When the shower is in use, the charger is de-powered, for example. They are inexpensive and work well.
You didn't answer the question though, why don't Google's phones, designed in California and made in China, just like the iPhone,
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In the US, the majority of people like the iPhone better....simple.
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You didn't answer the question though
Yes, I did.
Yes, indeed, if possible people will run a new dedicated circuit to charge an EV. For a variety of reasons that can be too costly to do. If a new circuit isn't possible then in the USA the limit is something like 120VAC @ 12A, but in much of Europe it's more like 240VAC @ 10-15 A. Those that did the math on their power needs for EV charging will find it more practical in Europe to own a car than in the USA because of the power available and the power consumed on average.
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There is nothing stopping you from putting in a 240 circuit that draws much more. It's just a matter of the gauge of wire used to run the circuit. The breaker is there to protect the wiring in the wall, not you or the appliance, so thicker wires, bigger breaker.
The limiting factor is the load factor of your entire house. The continuous load of your new EVSE can't bring the expected total continuous load f
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So basically we need to find a way to make Americans pay more for fuel, to save the planet. I'm sure that's going to be popular.
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The EU requires that chargers accept payment cards. Requiring an app is not allowed, and even with Tesla you can just pay via their website. In fact, Tesla is an outlier in that they still bother with an app. Most of them have a payment terminal on the charger, and maybe an RFID card option for loyalty schemes.
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The EU requires that chargers accept payment cards. Requiring an app is not allowed, and even with Tesla you can just pay via their website. In fact, Tesla is an outlier in that they still bother with an app. Most of them have a payment terminal on the charger, and maybe an RFID card option for loyalty schemes.
Nope. That regulation only comes into effect on 13th of April this year. And existing chargers have until 2027 to do retrofits.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/... [europa.eu]
Furthermore, it's only required for main
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You are correct, my mistake. It's a while since I've been to the continent, but in the UK most seem to be retrofitted now, or had them to start with. Some are still free.
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There are some places that before WWII had tram service like Druento, Italy [wikimedia.org] and now are served by BEV bus line.
Having reasonable public transportation means that people could buy only one car per family instead of two or three, because one could take a trolleybus o
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Another solution is to build electric vehicles that don't need big batteries to operate.
You mean like a PHEV?
This is a problem for private cars, I agree, but for public transportation...
Stop right there...
The entire point of a private car is to be able to avoid public transportation. For GM they know their market is largely rural and suburban Americans, those with public transportation already aren't buying many cars and light trucks. Those in urban environments, where the public transportation lies, can still buy a PHEV for where public transit can't take them and get nearly all their miles on electricity alone which makes it just a teeny tiny bit worse than a BEV.
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Its not range anxiety behind GM looking for alternatives for fleet vehicles its Chemistry!
The Batteries in BEVs are quoted to last 800K miles or so but the assumption behind that is that they are shallow cycling most of the time. In other words you drive it to work and home and change. The idea being most of the charge range in around 30% of batter capacity and not more. With the occasional long trip where the drive dips deeper and charges back up to 80%+ or so for the next leg.
The BEV wankers, latched on
woo hoo! (Score:2)
Excellent! Looking forward to some more options in this field. Like another PHEV minivan, pref AWD. Something to compete w/ the Rav4 Prime. Or maybe something like the BMW i3 REX.
There is no EV demand limit (Score:4, Insightful)
there is a limit for bad overpriced EVs.
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Somebody took calculus!
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Selling to the wrong crowd (Score:2, Funny)
o point in buying ANY modern car (Score:3)
Ditch the internet, ditch the 50 inch TV screen in lieu of the dash, give me a full EV range of 100 to 150km with a zero to 100km/h under 7 seconds and put in a generator that gets to produce electricity in its optimal RPM range and a gas tank.
Make the car big enough to haul shit and tow crap.
Because I'm owning one car and one car only and that one will do everything I ask it to passably or GTFO.
Not familiar, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
going by GM's history, they'll probably be brilliantly engineered
What part of GM's history would lead you to believe that? Because absolutely no part of it supports that assertion.
Re: Not familiar, eh? (Score:2)
I see that this comment doesn't appear in "all" on the ever shittier Mobile app.
The people who own this site continue to destroy it for no reason other than to boost crypto bullshit.
End of an era... For no reason other than fleecing dumbfucks
It's a shame (Score:2)
I really really want a good plugin hybrid. I want the performance of electric motors paired with the convenience and range of an internal combustion engine. But more than that, I want to use apple car play. I guess I can just hope Toyota keeps making them until I'm ready to get a new car.
PHEV is the best choice for some cases (Score:4, Informative)
I drive a 2012 Chevy Volt PHEV. Until recently, I would make a drive of ~500 miles every month or so, to visit family. I could arrange a 4-day weekend from work for these trips.
The drive was about 11 hours overall, much of it through rural areas. 11 hours is right about the limit of what I'm comfortable doing in a single drive. So I could drive down on Friday, visit Saturday and Sunday, then drive back up on Monday. If I were driving a pure EV, I'd have had to take a longer route (to find fast chargers) and make longer stops to recharge; this would turn it into a 2-day drive and then it no longer fits into a 4-day weekend with any meaningful time for visiting.
The EV range of the Volt is sufficient for most of my daily driving and outside of the long trips I buy gas maybe 3 or 4 times per year.
Series this time! (Score:2)
Series hybrids are a better way. Yeah, you can call them "range-extended EVs", but it doesnt change what they are/can be. Is there a little loss in efficiency when burning fuel compared to parallel hybrids? Maybe. But they're simpler and in the long run easier to maintain than parallels. They're better suited to use on battery alone when desired. Mostly, they allow increased design and update flexibility. You could buy the electric-only version, the large battery version with generator, or the small battery
Actual science, engineering and economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody needs to tell the Just Stop Oil activists that their tactics are backfiring.
It's not their tactics backfiring. It's their logic failing. No matter how badly you wish something to be true, for something to occur, the processes of science, engineering, and economics will take time. Likely more time than you wish.
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Looks like someone doesn't get jokes.
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Have you been evaluated for autism, sir? It's called a joke.
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Have you been evaluated for autism, sir? It's called a joke.
Poe's law. [tvtropes.org]
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Somebody needs to tell the Just Stop Oil activists that their tactics are backfiring.
The problem with that "crowd" is their "my way or the highway", the "all or nothing" approach. Unwilling to compromise on anything leads to serious problems; just look at the US Congress as a perfect example of that.
I don't see the world around me working in an "all or nothing" way for the most part. Yes, "law & justice" is "all or nothing"; you follow the law or else. Grocery stores, car lots, airports, bike shops, and so many other places offer a range of choices for the US consumer. Things might be
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Yes, that's the joke.
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If we were serious about reducing oil consumption the conversation wouldn't stop at EVs vs ICE. Legislation encouraging (or getting out of the way of) smaller cars and trucks could help tremendously and isn't on anyone's radar.
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Legislation encouraging (or getting out of the way of) smaller cars and trucks could help tremendously and isn't on anyone's radar.
Because you won't be passing any legislation at all if you are unceremoniously turfed from office, which would be the logical end result of that.
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:5, Interesting)
I see Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles as a temporary step to allay the worries of "range anxiety" that new EV owners are experiencing. The scarcity of fast chargers on ALL long-distance routes has people worried that an example trip from Portland to Denver might be a series of short drives with plans and back up plans of where to charge, how to handle construction delays, overcrowded charging locations, and cold weather performance degradation.
I think that once there is a robust charging network from coast to coast on every highway and back road, the PHEV will slowly decline in popularity. Why have a PHEV when you can't buy gasoline in the city unless you find a fleet station or a long-haul truck stop. I don't think PHEVs will be that popular for much longer than about 10 years and people get comfortable with BEV cars for daily use and possible viewing a rental ICE car for longer trips and driving vacations.
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:5, Insightful)
We could install superchargers every 20 miles along every interstate in the U.S., and you're still not going to overcome the fact that even "fast" charging is slow compared to filling up with gasoline. I can pull into a gas station and add another 550 miles of highway range to my Prius in five minutes, as opposed to 200 miles in 15 minutes with a supercharger and a BEV. A plug-in hybrid is truly the best of both worlds.
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So far I have taken only few long distance trips and have been lucky, but it was a 50-50 chance of having to user the backup level 2 charger, which would have greatly affected my trip.
So, having superchargers every 20 miles along every interstate in the U.S. would be re
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Currently I am willing to plan and wait for my car to charge...
You are such a good obedient boy! According to /. standard, you should be modded up +5 insightful!
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly you're not driving a Tesla.
For anyone reading this who doesn't understand why I write that: currently the US is split between Superchargers (NACS) and third party chargers (CCS), for the most part - though the US is switching to NACS. Third party chargers in the US (and most places, but particularly the US) are famous for poor reliability, but Superchargers have very high reliability (namely, Tesla actually gives a rat's arse and sends a repair crew when they get telemetry that a charger has gone down). But more to the point, Tesla pretty much never has just one charger at a given location, whereas third parties often do. So if a charger is out at a third-party site, and there's only the one, well, good luck, head off to your backup plan. But at a Supercharger, if one's out at all (which isn't common, comparably - more like about as common as you see closed gas pumps), you just switch to a different charger. You pretty much have to have the electricity out in the town in order to have a whole Supercharger site go down, wherein, good luck buying gas there either (most gas stations have no backup generators for the pumps). Or have it taken out by a natural disaster.
This is on top of the charging speed difference between the average third-party charger and the average Supercharger in the US (again, less so in Europe, we have - on average - better third-party chargers. Said chargers are usually a mix of 50kW, 150kW, and 350kW chargers - in the US the mix is biased more toward the lower end (though still includes all of them), while in Europe it's biased more to the upper end)
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Currently I am willing to plan and wait for my car to charge
One of the first type of customers to start complaining about BEV is trades. The F150 Lightning helped ruin the BEV reputation and its not long distance range here its what happens when you load the car with tools and materials. The quoted range is generally when the car is empty just maybe one passenger and a small load. But when you load it up with a minimum 500kg daily average 800kg most days and then tow 3000kg regularly as part of your job the range drops dramatically This also happens with Petrol/Dies
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:4, Informative)
1) There ARE fast chargers at ~20mile (even less) spacing in like half the US. Midwest is more like 30-40mi. Out in the boonies in west it might be more like 100mi, but then again, gas stations aren't super-common there either.
2) "I can pull into a gas station and add another 550 miles of highway range to my Prius in five minutes" - you can but you don't. Seriously, time yourself on long trips, esp. if you're travelling as part of a group, where everyone has their own needs. You spend longer stopped than you think.
As a general rule on trips, my Model 3 waits for me, not the other way around. Or more specifically: it charges more at stops than it needs to, making its charging speed less efficient (due to taper), because I wasn't yet ready at the time it had enough to go.
I did a ~2000km road trip this summer in my 2020 Model 3 (Iceland, one of the least densely populated countries on Earth), with two families who were in ICE vehicles. Nobody was waiting for anybody else. There were no charging stations at any of our overnight stays, just ordinary power sockets. Yet there was literally only one time that I fell behind for having to charge, and only because they didn't happen to need fuel then because they had bought some while I was out doing a hike. Contrarily, there were two times where they had to stop for fuel and I didn't need to charge. At one point they sent me back an hour and a half because one of them forgot their drone, so I had three hours more driving than them and had to spend the entire day playing catchup (I ultimately didn't catch up until our destination, but only because of the three hours extra driving, not the car; we both did about an equivalent length of stops during the day). I did more driving in general than them as well, since they mostly stopped at touristy places on the Ring Road, while I skipped a number of them and went out to more remote places to hike.
How? Even on an ordinary power socket (here, Schuko, 6-10A @ 220V, compared to a US wall socket, 12A@120V, or a US dryer socket, 24A@240V) it'd get like a 25% charge on travel nights, and much more on days where we stayed in the same place. Every time we stopped to eat anywhere near a charging station (which was most places - not planned, Iceland just has good infrastructure, at least on the Ring Road, with at least one fast charger in most small towns, though towns can be quite far apart), I got basically a full charge. Every time we did a bathroom stop or gas stop at a place with a fast charger, I got like a 40-60% charge. Every time we stopped at some tourist place that had AC chargers - maybe half of them - I got a 10-40% charge. So I was constantly filling up, *while their gas tanks weren't*. Even when we stopped to eat, they'd have to eat, *then* go fill their tanks as a separate task, whereas I just parked at the charger. The difference is that (A) chargers can be cheaply put anywhere, whereas gas stations can't (they cost millions of dollars and involve excavation for underground tanks); and (B) filling at a gas station is an active task, whereas charging is basically just a fancy form of parking.
Imagine if there actually had been proper chargers at the places where we were staying so I got a full charge every night. And remember that this is in a car from early 2020.
The fast chargers were a mix of V2 Supercharger (120kW), V3 Supercharger (250kW), and third party chargers, mainly 150kW. Maybe about 10%, 45%, and 45% of stops, respectively. The new V4 Superchargers however are 350kW. Also - of note - chargers keep getting cheaper every year (relative to their power), so not only are they getting more revenue (as their traffic increases), but also lower upfront costs. Charging is no longer a loss-leader, they're quite profitable businesses (in Iceland I've now even seen billboards advertising who has the fastest or cheapest charging), and this trend of higher utilization and lower capital expenditure translates directly to "more common, cheaper charging, and higher powers".
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd also like to emphasize, re: the above, that what's being talked about there is the worst case - a long, busy road trip. But in practice:
1) Most of your trips are just "daily driving". Gas cars need to routinely detour from their daily routine to go fill up (aka, to stand outside in whatever weather and pay out the nose to pump neurotoxic carcinogens into a tank). EVs don't.
2) Most non-daily driving trips are short, well within the range of the EV. See #1.
3) Most trips longer than the range aren't *that* much longer than the range. So charging needs are minute.
4) Even IF you're not stopping long enough on trips even longer than that, you're still getting SOME charge at your stops, so you're stair-stepping down, and so it's quite some time before you need a longer (aka, meal) break.
So for the overwhelming majority of trips, "charging time" simply doesn't come into play, even if you're doing only rare, brief stops. Rather, it's *ICE vehicles* that cause inconvenience - in your daily driving, in your non-daily trips within your range, and even most non-daily trips longer than your range. And the thing is, because you're used to that inconvenience, you don't even understand how convenient it is to NOT have to detour to stop for gas in your daily life.
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:4, Insightful)
Great example. Let's use a Model 3 LR 18". EPA range 358mi. Let's say 330mi actual in your driving conditions (depends on speed, weather, age of the vehicle, etc).
Start: 0mi driven, 330mi range (100%), 400mi remaining
Stop at: 250mi driven, 80mi range (24%), 150mi remaining (drove for: 3 1/2 hours)
Charge for: 15 minutes ("Typically, I stop roughly half way to refuel...that's about 10-15min tops.")
Depart at: 400mi driven, 210mi range (64%), 150mi remaining
Arrive at: 400mi driven, 60mi range (18%), 0mi remaining (drove for: 2 1/4 hours)
Want a longer trip? Well, at some point you're going to need to eat. That's already a 5 3/4 hour trip.
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Want a longer trip? Well, at some point you're going to need to eat.
Some people can snarf back a burger and drive at the same time. I don't, because crumbs, but many people do.
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The average time spent by gasoline vehicles on gasoline forecourts in the USA is just a tad over 11 minutes. Not everyone is doing a cannonball run to get to their destination.
Take a piss break man, enjoy your functioning bladder while you're still young, get a snack to make your ride more enjoyable, and your EV will be fully charged by the time you step out of the shop.
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...it's not as if you're getting nothing in return, eg. MUCH cheaper running and maintenance costs, ability to do most charging at home, etc.
Re: Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:3)
But it's not 15 minutes. It's 15 minute + drive iut of tge way to a charger + drive back + there are few chargers so you may have to wait.
Compared to gas, which is almost always 5 minutes inclusing on/off the interstate.
And that 15 minutes for 200 miles, is barely a 2 hour drive @ 75mph, which is normal interstate speed, because no one waits until you have 5 mile range left to find a charger.
With the potential for borked chargers, and them off te beaten path, 50 miles is a safe zone.
Range and charge speed
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There are also less obvious compromises.
1) The battery cycles more, and more thoroughly over short distances. This hurts its lifespan. To offset this, they have to use more durable chemistries and lower DoDs, which means significantly more mass and volume per unit energy stored, as well as more cost per kWh. (Hybrids suffer even more from this effect - BEV batteries "have it easy" :) )
2) The need for an engine imposes shape demands that hurt aerodynamics
3) The engine makes the car more topheavy, aka worse
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
...and possible viewing a rental ICE car for longer trips and driving vacations.
I have to wonder how people think this works. There's high demand for rental vehicles around holidays when people make these long trips. Do people think that a rental company is going to keep a fleet of cars parked for something like 40 weeks out of the year so there's enough ICEVs to meet demand on holidays? No, that's not going to happen.
Rental companies will keep a lot of cars in reserve for these peaks but for the most part they rent to people during the weekdays on business trips, and they keep inv
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I know people that have BEVs and they will keep an ICEV around "just in case". A beat up 4x4 truck is a popular choice as the backup because if you are going to keep an ICEV around for driving only a few days out of the year then there isn't much concern on fuel economy. If there's furniture to move, deep snow impeding travel, or any of a number of situations where a truck is preferable to an all-electric car, then it's nice having a big old truck "in your back pocket" to avoid needing to rent one.
This seems to run counter to the first half of your post. That beat-up truck isn't addressing any range anxiety, and almost certainly is a bad choice for any long trips.
I think my strategy would be the opposite. With a truck, I'm almost certainly just toodling around my local area... so a Ford Lightning F-150 or Silverado EV makes perfect sense to be the first EV I buy, since I'd only ever need to charge it at home.
If I felt a backup ICE vehicle was necessary, I'd hang onto the Camry - it seats 4 comfortabl
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"Do people think that a rental company is going to keep a fleet of cars parked for something like 40 weeks out of the year so there's enough ICEVs to meet demand on holidays?"
You think that private citizens will keep an ICEV around just in case, yet don't think rental companies will. The arguments for and against are comparable in each case, except that even if the demand is highly correlated in time it won't be 100% correlated. It will still take fewer vehicles for rental companies to satisfy the demand th
Re:Way to go, Just Stop Oil (Score:5, Informative)
But the entire article is based on a nonsensical premise:
Except that US EV demand ISN'T plateauing. 2023 EV sales were 7,3% of the total, vs. 5,9% in 2022.
In absolute numbers (not percentages) the growth has slowed, but overall auto demand growth slowed as well, and in particular, demand for more expensive vehicles. For the simple reason that most people don't decide "I'm going to buy whatever particular vehicle that suits me best, and then I'll figure out how to afford it", but rather, "Here's what I can afford in terms of monthly payments, what's the best vehicle I can get for that?". And as interest rates rise, monthly payments rise, so one has to buy a cheaper vehicle to keep them constant. Or simply delay their purchase.
The auto market varies widely on short-term timescales (nearly everyone cut back on / slow-walked expansions due to inflation), but is relatively steady over long-term timescales. People have a lot of flexibility to delay or accelerate purchases based on the economy, but in the long term, vehicles wear out and need to be replaced at some point.
GM's problems are much bigger, however. The simple fact is that they're a laggard in the EV space, finding it difficult to be competitive. Not just with Tesla, or even the Chinese, but even with other old-school automakers like Ford. So that puts them in a bind. Targeting PHEV buyers is certainly one approach they can try - but it'll only last them so long. We've seen this in other more mature markets like Norway - PHEVs can do good business for a while, until sales rather suddenly collapse and are replaced by BEVs. It's starting to happen here in Iceland, too.
Can't buy gasoline? (Score:4, Insightful)
"can't buy gasoline in the city unless you find a fleet station or a long-haul truck stop"
Where do you think all the pure ICE cars never mind PHEVs being sold today are going to disappear to? Here in europe ICE will still be sold until 2035 which means there'll be a lot of them around until at least the 2050s so you'll be waiting a long time for those service stations to disappear.
Re: Can't buy gasoline? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, maybe. There are so many gas stations because there is so much demand for gas. But as demand drops, the big issue is what happens when you get to major replacement time at the gas station? They last roughly 20 years. Replacement is not cheap. At some point, whether ice cars exist or not isn't the issue, it's whether they cost justify the maintenance of the fueling infrastructure.
As that process continues, gas will rise in price and stations get less common.
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Well, maybe. There are so many gas stations because there is so much demand for gas. But as demand drops, the big issue is what happens when you get to major replacement time at the gas station? They last roughly 20 years. Replacement is not cheap. At some point, whether ice cars exist or not isn't the issue, it's whether they cost justify the maintenance of the fueling infrastructure.
As that process continues, gas will rise in price and stations get less common.
Granted there may not be a station every half mile like there is now, but I don't think gas will ever be hard to find, and certainly not in the lifetime of most people here.
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BMW i3 REX was a great implementation of the PHEV idea.
Best of both (Score:2)
I see Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles as a temporary step to allay the worries of "range anxiety" that new EV owners are experiencing.
Plug-in hybrids combine the best features of electric vehicles and gasoline vehicles, in that since most trips are short, they effectively get the efficiency and low emissions of electric vehicles, but they have the range and quick refueling of gasoline vehicles for occasional long trips. And, as a bonus, they can have smaller batteries and hence are cheaper and lighter.
Plug-in hybrids also combine the complexity of gasoline engines with the more complex electronic features of electric vehicles, so they ha