EVs Are Just Going To Win 254
An anonymous reader shares a post: EVs are still winning. But they haven't won yet; only 4% of the global passenger car fleet, 23% of the bus fleet, and less than 1% of delivery trucks are electrified.
But at this point I think the writing is on the wall. The phenomenon of a superior technology displacing an older, inferior technology is not uncommon, and it generally looks like the EV transition is looking now. When a new technology passes a 5% adoption rate, it almost never turns out to be inferior to what came before; with EVs, that threshold has now been reached in dozens of countries.
In fact, we don't have to rely on trend-based forecasting to understand why EVs are just going to win. There are a number of fundamental factors that make EVs simply better than combustion vehicles. The longer time goes on, the more these inherent advantages will make themselves felt in the market.
The first of these is price. Currently, EVs often require government subsidies in order to be price-competitive with combustion cars. But batteries are getting cheaper and cheaper as we get better and better at building them. The cheaper batteries get, the smaller the subsidies required to get people to switch to EVs. Goldman Sachs reports that this crucial tipping point will be reached in about two years:
[...] Once batteries cross that tipping point, the EV revolution will take on its own momentum. It will simply be cheaper to buy an EV than a combustion car. People will gravitate toward the cheaper option, especially if it comes with other advantages. And in this case it does.
EVs' second advantage is convenience. Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.
But at this point I think the writing is on the wall. The phenomenon of a superior technology displacing an older, inferior technology is not uncommon, and it generally looks like the EV transition is looking now. When a new technology passes a 5% adoption rate, it almost never turns out to be inferior to what came before; with EVs, that threshold has now been reached in dozens of countries.
In fact, we don't have to rely on trend-based forecasting to understand why EVs are just going to win. There are a number of fundamental factors that make EVs simply better than combustion vehicles. The longer time goes on, the more these inherent advantages will make themselves felt in the market.
The first of these is price. Currently, EVs often require government subsidies in order to be price-competitive with combustion cars. But batteries are getting cheaper and cheaper as we get better and better at building them. The cheaper batteries get, the smaller the subsidies required to get people to switch to EVs. Goldman Sachs reports that this crucial tipping point will be reached in about two years:
[...] Once batteries cross that tipping point, the EV revolution will take on its own momentum. It will simply be cheaper to buy an EV than a combustion car. People will gravitate toward the cheaper option, especially if it comes with other advantages. And in this case it does.
EVs' second advantage is convenience. Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.
Define "Win". (Score:3, Insightful)
Meaning eventually getting to be 51% or more of personal vehicles?
Completely replacing gas-powered vehicles? Unlikely.
Re:Define "Win". (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people still ride horses, so gas-powered vehicles didn't "win" either by your definition.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I see it like "1999/20XX will be the year of Linux on the desktop!" with constant claims of why one tech is superior to another, simply expecting people to switch without ever honestly understanding why people have and will continue to stick with the other.
Re: (Score:2)
... and Linux on the desktop passed that magic 5% more than once.
Re: (Score:2)
Is Linux definitively better?
I like and use Linux (though to be fair a lot less as a desktop since the shift to gnome3/kde4, also I started getting a lot of (temporary) freezes in the 2007/2008 era (I assume related to all the scheduler work and not having an SSD)), but I'm not convinced it's definitively better than Windows or MacOS.
Windows is slowly getting worse since 7, and Linux slowly getting better (after that sharp drop in that 2007/2008 era), but is it really better for a desktop?
With so much movin
Re:Define "Win". (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Define "Win". (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah same utility with double the complexity... what's not to love.
Re: (Score:2)
Woosh. Battery repairs are not the only repairs that matter.
Re: Define "Win". (Score:3)
Great to see the manufacturer built in a "turnover" cycle automatically.
Re:Define "Win". (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. This article is just fantasy. A quick look at the used market reveals everything about how well BEV adoption is going, and it's not going well.
Define "not well". The sales numbers are growing double-digit every year.
Re: (Score:3)
A quick look at the used market reveals everything about how well BEV adoption is going, and it's not going well.
Used markets for an emerging technology is a terrible indicator. Early adopters don't want used technology, they are usually first adopters that want the newest stuff.With emerging technology, the technology changes and advances very quickly. Who wants the subpar stuff from 2 years ago when the tech have changed by leaps on bounds and is much better now?
Re: (Score:2)
They define winning as a competition where all but one of the competitors are banned from participating one by one over time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'm one of those jackasses, who, while a long long way from being a grandpa, just wants to know how to define "win" in this scenario. 4% of vehicles is a long long way from "winning" by any stretch of the imagination.
Frist post (Score:2, Funny)
Only took 25+ years
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Frist post (Score:5, Funny)
The key to getting the frist post, young grasshopper, is not to think about getting the frist post. Only then can you respond both on topic and frist, without even thinking and while clapping with one hand.
Behold:
The Grasshopper and the First Post
A young grasshopper approached the master, who sat by an electric vehicle charging silently under the sun.
“Master,” the grasshopper asked, “how can I always be first to post on Slashdot?”
The master looked at the electric vehicle and said, “When the battery is full, does the car race to its destination, or does it simply wait?”
The grasshopper was puzzled. “But the post must come quickly, or it is lost!”
The master smiled. “The fastest post is not the first, but the one that speaks when the world is ready to listen.”
At that moment, the charging cable clicked, and the vehicle remained still.
--ChatGPT
We fear change. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I know, I got one 4 years ago for a song and it's been great.
Re:We fear change. (Score:5, Informative)
I've had both, and would say that if you can level 2 charge at home, and you don't have honestly unusual needs for range or long distance travel speed, skip the plug-in hybrid and go full electric. Plug-in hybrids are not really any cheaper, and they still have thousands of moving parts (and their maintenance) AND the electric bits.
I grew up on a farm, have lived, breathed (literally), loved, and maintained internal combustion contraptions most of my life. The electrics are better for most uses already, will soon be better for even more, and will definitely replace virtually all of our complicated mechanical anachronisms.
Re: (Score:2)
> The electrics are better for most uses already,
Except one thing -- road trips.
We go camping in various state parks and whatnot, sometimes a few states away. A full electric is totally impractical for this kind of thing given current recharge rates.
Re:We fear change. (Score:4, Informative)
A full electric is totally impractical for this kind of thing given current recharge rates.
No, it is not, unless you drive for more than six hours continuously, or have two drivers alternating, neither of which is an ideal, or even recommended situation.
Current recharge rates for new vehicles are around 1h on average, with an average charging station. You could go 20%-80% in about 25-35 minutes, once every 4 hours or so. Less if your car allows faster charging. Let's say 30 minutes on average.
Sure, if you drive like a maniac and ignore safety recommendations, you won't like it. That doesn't mean "totally impractical".
Re: We fear change. (Score:2)
When I'm on a road trip, I want to enjoy it. Constantly worrying about the charge and the location of a charger is not on my holiday agenda.
Re: (Score:2)
When they get it down to 5 minutes, we can talk...
15 minutes is completely fine, and in practice where it's at today. 15 minutes every 2-2.5 hours is about right anyway, to take a bathroom break, buy a drink or a snack, stretch your legs, then hit the road again.
Re: (Score:2)
15 mins is usually a little faster than I am. A break after driving 200 miles is welcome.
Re:We fear change. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, mildly inconvenient for long road trips.
But you have to consider the tradeoff. The pure EV is going to be more convenient for weeks where you drive more than 30 miles a day but less than 200 miles a day compared to a PHEV. The PHEV is going to need gas to cover some of those miles and/or have to be constantly plugging into a L2 charger at every opportunity to stay in electric mode. The EV can generally skip days and plug in as opportunity arise.
So on a roadtrip, the EV is going to demand you take a 30 minute break every few hours during which your car will charge, while the PHEV can replenish range with gas in 3-5 minutes.
So if you have to pick just one, do you want a regular inconvenience of PHEV limited range, or a road trip inconvenience when it comes up? At least for me, such road trips come up maybe 3 or 4 times a year, and incurring about 6 hours of EV charging inconvenience a year is better than a weekly refueling effort. Besides, stopping to rest after 3 or 4 hours of driving is something I want to do anyway, and I can do other stuff while the car charges, at least in theory.
Currently, my household has one of each, and I admit we use the PHEV for those long road trips. The PHEV is otherwise "workable" as it only needs to go like 20 miles in a typical day. The pure EV is used for a 250 mile trip that is a bit regular because that needs no public charging, and used for commute which exceeds the electric range of a PHEV.
Chargers (Score:3)
This is our issue as well. We have an all-electric car and an ICE. We take the ICE when we go up to my in-law's cabin for vacation, because the nearest charger is an hour further away from the cabin, and installing a level 2 charger at the cabin would require installing a new service and running a heavy gauge cable underground for a hundred feet.
Re: (Score:2)
Disagree
A plug in hybrid basically duplicates the entire drivetrain, adding weight, cost and complexity
We overhype and create unrealistic expectations (Score:4, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Basically a market has five subcategories, each has potential customers with different needs and wants and tolerances. A product market fit for one segment is not necessarily a good fit for the others. Wrt EVs we're seeing a good fit with early adopters who tend to be better positioned to afford the current higher costs, able to update their home for home charging, and are generally more risk tolerant. Things like range are largely irrelevant as they plug in each night and wake up to a fully charged battery. The main market is very different. Cost is more of a problem, home charging is less likely, etc. The product market fit isn't there yet, public charging is still a mess for example. So we're seeing a slowdown in adoption as EV makers have largely saturated the early adopters and are hoping to sell into the main market. This is a notoriously difficult thing to do for a new technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In time it will all get sorted out. The public infrastructure will get built out. EV tech and batteries will get even better. Costs will come down. At that point there will be little resistance in the main market.
So why all the concern now? Well, governments and EV advocates have overhyped EVs and created political time tables for their adoption. Massively unrealistic expectations. EVs will dominate one day, but they will do so based on science, engineering and economics. Not on politics or wishful thinking.
EVs are not suffering from consumer fear. EVs are simply following the normal technology adoption life cycle and that takes time.
Re: We fear change. (Score:2)
I'm not afraid of change but I am not going to condemn myself to buying a car that is overwhelming inferior by design and not suited for my needs. I need reliability, refueling in 5 minutes, range and low price. Once EVs offer me the same benefits, then we can talk about change.
Re: We fear change. (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are called series hybrids and they are not going to beat anything. We have a couple examples out there, although they are not full series hybrids because the generator does not provide enough power to run the vehicle, only to keep the batteries charged for longer than usual so as to extend range (hence they are called range extenders.) They are expensive, they have to carry both a generator and a motor. Non series hybrids accomplish the same thing without having to have a separate generator.
Re: (Score:2)
Only the new Ramcharger has that layout currently unless I'm missing a product somewhere, and it hasn't been released yet.
I am eagerly looking forward to this becoming more the norm because I want an electric truck I can tow a camper with across the country without spending 4 hours a day charging.
Re: (Score:2)
The i3 does it (as an option).
They stopped selling them a year or so ago, but they had something like a 9 year run.
Only about 60 miles gas range on 2 gallons though.
Re: (Score:2)
The Chevy Volt does this, it is a piece of shit vehicle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: We fear change. (Score:4, Informative)
"Batteries aren't there yet. The grid would need a complete overhaul. Power generation isn't clean"
Batteries are there for most people and purposes, and are improving quickly. The grid is fine if we do most charging at night when there is excess capacity, or if we add more generation near to chargers (like solar) and even if charged PURELY from coal the lifecycle emissions of an EV are lower than an ICEV. Your talking points are as old and stupid as the people you got them from.
Re: (Score:2)
(renewable often means wood chips, as bad as coal)
Err... I don't have a dog in this fight (and if I did, it would be on the non-renewable side since fossil power puts food on my table) but how could wood chips possibly be "as bad as coal?" "Grow a tree, shred the tree, burn the chips, repeat" should be fairly close to carbon neutral.
Re: (Score:2)
Where do you think coal got all its nasty hydrocarbons from?
From what I've been told, the answer is republicans...
Yes, they will. But not today. (Score:3)
Eventually, the battery prices for EV's will drop to the point where they are cheaper than new ICE vehicles. We're still no where near that point today, though. Right now, EV's normally have a 30% price premium to a comparable gas powered vehicle with the same features. I'd expect that to continue to drop over time, but right now EV's (in the US, anyway) are still tech toys for the upper middle and wealthy classes. The recent launch of several new $85,000+ electric SUV and truck models certainly isn't helping change this perception.
Re: (Score:3)
Eventually, the battery prices for EV's will drop to the point where they are cheaper than new ICE vehicles. We're still no where near that point today, though
The summary says Golldman Sachs says the breakeven point is two years away.
Re: (Score:3)
How is that going to play out (Score:3)
At the rate we're going EVs might win the war with new car purchases but those are going to become increasingly less common and are fleet is going to start looking like Cuba where they have to keep cars from the 1950s going.
Re:How is that going to play out (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless we do something to bring back the suburbs
Bring BACK the suburbs?
The way America builds suburbs is financially unsustainable. Currently it's fueled by debt and taxing the poor to fund richer people. If you want suburbs, you need to find a better way of doing them which essentially means either much denser or much much higher taxes. Currently the tax paid per unit of land area doesn't remotely cover the cost of infrastructure per unit of land area.
Re: (Score:2)
you really cant' think of any other way for them to charge?
We should be pushing on subsidies for landlords installing chargers, we should eventually charge higher property taxes to landlords who have parking spots without chargers. We should be pushing for people to be able to charge at work, we should be building out charging infrastructure in on street parking the way it has been done in Canada.
This shit is not that hard to come up with. Its hard to get it to happen in our do nothing society but thats a
Renter not necessarily in an apartment (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What incentivizes apartment owners to do so? Are there really that many renters hounding their landlords for such a perk? Or will the government have to get involved to subsidize or mandate them, further proving that the modern EV is simply a government car.
Re:How is that going to play out (Score:4, Insightful)
Same thing that incentivizes landords to provide parking in the first place. Compared to the land to sit a car on, a charger is cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean... state & local government? ... at least until recently it was a widely mandated thing, which now is being thrown out: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02... [npr.org]
Depending on the location, yes, some parking is provided because the builder/owner knows that it's needed and they won't be able to sell/rent places without it, in other places, it and the amount of it is mandated (and sometimes even limited) by the local governments.
Un
Re: How is that going to play out (Score:4, Insightful)
"Or will the government have to get involved to subsidize or mandate them, further proving that the modern EV is simply a government car."
Now do fossil fuel subsidies.
Hint: every car is a government car
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which ones exactly? Be specific. And if you're going to be honest, only call out those which *only* apply to the fossil fuel industry and not any other.
Remind me: Has the federal or state governments been seeking to ban one kind of automobile to support the purchase of their favored, petroleum burning ones?
Where are all the grants to build gasoline stations throughout the country to meet the unmet demand for them?
We are currently seeing the government attempt to pick winners and
Drive one for three weeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Are EVs perfect for all use cases? No.
Do large-scale technology transfers take a long time, with the superseded technology continuing in use for various reasons also for a long time? Yes.
Will EVs take over from ICE vehicles in the next 5 years? No.
Are there apartment dwellers or crowded neighborhood homeowners who do not at the moment have a good charging solution? Yes
With that out of the way: driving an EV for three weeks is enough to convince most people that they will never go back to ICE. It so much more pleasant that the people who refuse to try it don't believe what the people who have say.
Re:Drive one for three weeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, too: a real act of journalism would be to dig into who is funding the cacophony of anti-EV factiods, memes, and story pitches that suddenly popped up across the media spectrum starting around April of this year (2024).
Re: (Score:2)
Perfectly normal tech adoption life cycle (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
You will have to pry my 3.0L Eco Diesel Jeep from my cold dead hands.
Re: Drive one for three weeks (Score:2)
No need, your Fiat will shit the bed itself sooner or later
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
1) I agree that true backroading is a use case for which liquid fuel will be superior for a long time
2) That said I was fascinated by how fast Jeep people took up the Wrangler PHEV - it is a good technology for the vehicle modulo medium-term reliability
3) With no disrespect to Jeep people though they are a good counterexample to the "EVs must have perfect 20 year reliability" attack line: are there 20, 30, and 40 year old Jeeps on the road and the backroads. Absolutely! What percentage of parts and assemb
Re: (Score:2)
I rented a Kia EV6 for a few days for a road trip, and found that finding places to DC fast charge it was far more difficult than it should have been.
Coming from that experience, I found that I won't try another long distance road trip with an EV unless it had an NACS/Tesla charge port, because they seem to be far more prevalent where I was traveling.
Re: (Score:2)
The reality is that some of the features that a Tesla offers have nothing to do with being a BEV, but that it has whatever new features a person likes. You can put the same exact features on any othe
Re:Drive one for three weeks (Score:4, Insightful)
Here come the edge cases! If I can't tow a trailer from San Diego to grandma's house in Maine any time I want to the vehicle is useless!
Of course, we haven't taken that trip since our youngest entered high school 9 years ago, but we need to be able to.
not much win yet (Score:5, Insightful)
The cheaper batteries get, the smaller the subsidies required to get people to switch to EVs
Here in Europe this year subsidies got smaller, prices increased, less people buy EVs. The win is quite far.
EVs' second advantage is convenience. Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.
I call bullshit on that. Most car owners don't have where to charge at night, so they simply can't buy EVs. EVs can't grow beyond the niche of people charging at home.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure the "market of people who have homes" is as niche as you think it is - In the US it's about 70% of people. I would also expect apartments to more frequently provide charging for renters in the future
Re: (Score:3)
1. Norway 90.4%
2. Island 64.0%
3. Sweden 59.8%
4. Denmark 46.1%
5. Netherlands 44%
While Germany comes in on 24.6%, Europe 23.4%, China 37.0%, and the US at 9.1%.
Of course, for the total percentage of running cars, it is less than that for new sales.
Yes and no but not yet (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a model 3 and a regular car.
The 3 is super awesome for driving around the local region. It sucks for medium to long distances.
To get to the airport about an hour away I have to charge to 100% the night before to make it there and back without stopping.
To get to my friend's place 3.5 hours away? I've done it twice but fuck that. What a pita. I take my regular car for long trips. I check gas when I leave and stop if necessary, otherwise I just go. At the other end I don't need to look around for a charger. My friend is in a condo so overnight charging is not an option. Long distances are a clear win for the ICE by any metric.
The batteries don't hold enough charge, they degrade over time recharging takes more time, chargers aren't as available, some trips can require planning, and if the batteries dies out of warranty I am fucked for about $15k to replace it.
Once the batteries charge faster, don't degrade, go further, the car doesn't require expensive special tires, and there are more chargers then we have something to talk about when it comes to replacing ICE. I just put new tires on the 3 for about $1300. That sucked.
I know Toyota has been talking about it for 10 years but if they ever launch a working solid state battery then that should solve most of it but until I see them on the road I'm not making any car decisions with that in mind.
Policy change needs to win, not EVs (Score:3)
Plug-in hybrids, policy shifts that will encourage cars to be smaller, and a focus on improving public transit/carpool options/walking & cycling for local trips is what we *need* to do. EVs are better for the environment in some ways, but do absolutely nothing to improve traffic and their weight is causing more damage to our already poor condition roads.
And yes, I know walking/cycling/public transit won't work for everyone in every part of the country. That's not the point. It's to give everyone an option, which will reduce traffic for those who can't/won't give up their personal car. Make the options more appealing for the majority of people. That will do more to help congestion and the environment than a switch to EVs.
"Never forget, the electric car is here to save the car industry, not the planet."
Copper (Score:3)
Work out how much copper is needed (with current tech) and then work out what the current mining rates are and then work out when EV's will "win".
Odds are modern batteries will be obsolete by then. Probably copper-wound motors too.
But nobody who loves EV's wants to do the math. Storytelling displaces engineering due to belief structures.
Where are the GM Hybrids? (Score:2)
I know there are lots of notable hybrid models out there from other companies, but I'm baffled when I look at GM and see they disengaged from that option at the most critical, opportune time to have a decent plugin hybrid available... the Volt is still well remembered/loved and even forgetting the pure EV mode, they run more efficient than pure ICE cars. It's baffling. Whoever was behind the decision to lose the momentum in this particular market should never hold a job in the automotive industry.
In America
Dumb EV please (Score:2)
Can someone make a no frills dumb EV?
- Radio is bluetooth or Apple/Google car play.
- Digital Speedometer read out
- Everything else analog buttons
- Any special engineering is for sound road noise prevention
Re: (Score:2)
Even better, take an old car (built in the 80s for example) and replace the engine with electric motor and batteries. That's the sort of EV I may be OK with, not the overly computerized crap (this includes modern ICE cars).
'We'll be so tired of winning...' (Score:2)
Plug In Extended Range Hybrid (Score:2)
1) Able to plug it in to an electrical source
2) A battery pack that will go 50-100 miles to reduce cost and weight vs. the all electric versions
3) Electric only to the wheels to reduce complexity.
4) Add a gas generator in the vehicle that running at it's most efficient to charge the battery after I go 50-100 miles.
5) Less than 30,000
I think the first four would be ideal and any company that can get number 5 as well will "win"
When are people getting homes and garages? (Score:2)
I mean so much of the population lives in apartments in cities, the ideal place to have an EV, not the rural areas where people mostly have houses.
With affordability being an issue, such a bold statement.
"Will charge them in their houses and garage"
People are going to have those? Amazing, I'm looking forward to the future.
It's great to charge a car at your home, if you have a home you can park at and put in a charger.
Re: (Score:3)
Personal vehicles of any kind are a crap solution for dense urban areas. Good public transit, good bike infrastructure, and good walkability can take a lot of personal vehicles off the road. But that's anathema here in North America, sadly.
When the power has 100% uptime and the state (Score:2)
and city backed power monopolies stop sending shit begging people to turn their A/C off and replace the light bulbs because they can't fucking handle the load - call me. We're nowhere near that. You need infrastructure for this shit.
I have an EV (Score:2)
It works great. I charge at home and when on a road trip, the Supercharger network works well.
As soon as the national charging network is as good as the Superchargers, EVs will make sense for more people.
Apartment complexes and condos also need to install chargers.
The vehicles are ready, it's the charging that needs work
Re: (Score:3)
Convenience? (Score:2)
Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.
Most, if not all, current EV owners can charge at home, as part of the decision-making process in buying an EV is having the ability to install a home charger.
However, huge numbers of ICE owners do not have that luxury - dedicated off-street parking for urban car owners is very much the exception, irrespective of the dwelling type. For many, it's pot luck whether you can even park outside your own house, and running a cable across the sidewalk/pavement is very much frowned upon.
EV adoption has plateaued bec
Re: (Score:2)
Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.
Most, if not all, current EV owners can charge at home, as part of the decision-making process in buying an EV is having the ability to install a home charger.
However, huge numbers of ICE owners do not have that luxury - dedicated off-street parking for urban car owners is very much the exception, irrespective of the dwelling type. For many, it's pot luck whether you can even park outside your own house, and running a cable across the sidewalk/pavement is very much frowned upon.
Been saying the same for several years now... Here in the Dallas area, the only residential being built now is ultra-high-density apartment complexes, but they STILL only put in 2-4 chargers for several hundred units. Until building codes are updated to require apartments to provide dedicated parking with power (metered from your units electricity provider, not some extortionate exclusive contract), they're never going to be an option for a huge section of the population.
Win Bigly (Score:2)
1. Planned obsolescence. They are designed to lock out aftermarket supplies, so nothing stopping manufacturers from totaling your car [driving.ca] by overpricing parts.
2. Invasive for-profit tracking. Unlike a smartphone, you can't load custom privacy-focused ROM.
3. Maximizing Costs.
4. Leading cause of range anxiety.
IDK, Noah's dumb (Score:2)
Charging Infrastructure is Key (Score:2)
Outside the Testa supercharger network's range, you have to rely on third party DC fast chargers. Many of those have just 1 charging cable you can use and half the time the equipment does not work or activate when you need it. There needs to me more
Smartphone dependency? (Score:2)
Are there any EV's available that NEVER need a smartphone and internet connection to operate, and where I can pull up to any charger and just swipe a card, instead of needing an app and giving them my life's story first like a normal fuel pump?
convenience lol (Score:2)
EVs' second advantage is convenience. Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.
This is only a convenience when you do not need to travel longer than the range of your vehicle or you have power at home. If either of those 2 things are true then it becomes a hinderance.
"An anonymous reader shares a post." WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
EVs will not win... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tell them a 50 year buildout of infrastructure is required to get this all working correctly, and brains melt. Realize that the sea level rise is already baked in absent direct intervention via technological solutions to counter it. Reducing CO2 output couldn't impact it fast enough. More liquid brain matter flows to the ground. Get ready for it.
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Re:Batteries are heavy and expensive (Score:5, Informative)
Car batteries are a LOT cheaper than that.
Currently the average price per KWH is $53. The last time the average was $500/KWH was in 2014-2015
https://www.warpnews.org/energ... [warpnews.org]
Re:Batteries are heavy and expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
"There's no catalyst for this on the horizon."
Sure there is. Saying something ignorant at the end of an otherwise informative post doesn't make your narrative convincing.
We are at the very beginning of a lengthy transition, the transition itself is the "catalyst" you are referring to. Costs go down as volume goes up. Also, going "400 miles" is an arbitrary requirement that's good for your argument, but it carries no weight in an objective discussion. It is unlikely that will ever be the market requirement unless there's a "catalyst" that enables it, you know, the thing you're trying to claim will not exist.
Re: (Score:2)
What happens to the Petro tax revenue when everyone goes EV?
Would the cost of an EV car ownership go up when governments need their money again..
My state now charges EV owners $250/year tax when they renew their registration
Re: (Score:2)
I'll just throw a conversion kit into my old pickup truck and not tell them that it's an EV now.
"Sure. I'll see you at the gas pump with my tax paying credit card in hand. When hell freezes over."
Re: (Score:2)
For road taxes, some places have switched to either a flat fee per vehicle or based on the mileage
Re: (Score:2)
That's just it. It's marketed as being cheaper than gas but, jokes on them. Most of the gas prices are taxes, think those taxes will vanish? Think again.
You're going to own an EV with limited range with more controlled infrastructure that costs just as much that is more costly for repairs with special software and requirements where you can't just go anywhere and get 'gas' to put into it.
They're not better for the environment either due to the current batteries. It takes like 8 and a half years to break car
Re: Brought to you by... (Score:2)
"Meanwhile, in flyover country, the distance between charging stations is often farther than what the EVs can travel."
Maybe they should take some of that government money on offer to build more and do so.
Wait, these guys are too stupid to take all the benefit money the government is already trying to dump into their economies which would also help their citizens, they will never do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Brought to you by... (Score:2)