Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
People keep talking about how as electric cars become cheaper, more people will use them. But what they keep ignoring is that they are totally useless for long trips.
The Climate Spokeswoman for the UK PM Boris Johnson, Allegra Stratton, recently let the cat out of the bag when she revealed why even she doesn’t use an EV (electric vehicle):
“Net-zero is the glide path. What we have to be doing more quickly – the science is clear – we have to be changing our carbon emissions output right now so that we can stop temperature increase by 2030.
She explained that she doesn’t want to stop to charge her car when she visits elderly relatives “200,250 miles away”.
She claimed that she visits family around the UK, including Scotland, north Wales, the Lake District and Gloucester.
Because of this, she said: “They’re all journeys that I think would be at least one quite long stop to charge.”
(Gotta admit, I have to admire the otherworldly idiocy of anyone who seriously claims that we can “stop temperature increase by 2030”. Here’s why that is ungrounded madness … but I digress.)
Now, here in Nowherica, 250 miles is considered an easy morning’s commute … a map of Texas versus Europe shows why.
So I got to thinking … just how long a charging stop would that be to go another 250 miles? Me, I drive a 2016 Ram Ecodiesel pickup truck with about a 500 mile range, although the new ones have about a 1,000 mile range. And I can “recharge” it for another 500 miles in about five minutes at the pump.
Looking for information on this question, I see that the figure in question is called “RPH”, which stands for “Range Per Hour”. This is how many miles of range you get per hour of charging. I find a site called How Long Does It Take To Charge An Electric Car that says:
Range per hour varies depending on how efficient your car is. Small full battery electric cars (e.g. Renault Zoe) are the most efficient and get 30 miles of range per hour charging at 7kW. The biggest full battery electric cars (e.g. Audi e-tron Quattro) are heavier and get ~20 miles of range per hour at 7kW.
YIKES! That’s the charge rate for the standard commercial chargers. I can see why the UK Climate Spokesbabe doesn’t want to drive an EV. If you’re stopping to recharge your Audi e-tron for another 250 miles, instead of the five minutes it takes me to recharge my diesel pickup, it will take you twelve and a half hours to recharge.
But heck, don’t worry. Here’s Edmund King, the head of the UK Automobile Association. He says that drivers should take a break after 200 miles of driving.
“Drivers covering long distances should take regular breaks to maintain safety, so this is the ideal time to charge the car. Range anxiety will continue to decrease with more chargers and improved range on new models.”
Well, that makes perfect sense. Just stop for a quick ten-hour lunch, and you’re ready for your next 200 miles. And Elon Musk, winner of the Olympic Gold Medal For Getting The Most US Taxpayer Subsidies, makes much the same point regarding the new “long-range” Tesla Model S:
Musk said that he doesn’t see a need for an electric vehicle with a range of more than 400 miles:
“What we are seeing is that once you have a range above 400 miles, more range doesn’t really matter. There are essentially zero trips above 400 miles where the driver doesn’t need to stop for restroom, food, coffee, etc. anyway.”
The comment was criticized for not accounting for the fact that a 400-mile range is closer to 250-300 miles in colder climates and depending on the conditions.
Heck, yes, I often need to stop for ten hours for restroom, food, and coffee …
Call me crazy, but with the Tesla Model S going for a cool $74,490 including ten-hour restroom breaks, I reckon I’m gonna stick with my Ram Ecodiesel.
w.
… h/t to the irrepressible James Delingpole for a couple of quotes …
[UPDATE] Several commenters have pointed out that there are faster chargers out there, that can charge at 100 or even 200 miles or range per hour. This would cut the charge time in the middle of a 600-mile trip down to thre or even one and a half hours … in theory, of course. In practice, the numbers somehow never seem to match up to theory.
But heck, yes, I often need to stop for a couple hours for restroom, food, and coffee …
What may have value may be an EV city car, just for shopping or driving around for different reasons near your home.
For the rest…..I prefer my old Volvo benzine 850
That assumes you can afford to own two vehicles.
No, only one, and that doesn’t change. For the shorter ways we use our bicycles.
How many bags of groceries can you carry on your bicycle.
At least the modern plastic grocery bags won’t disintegrate in the rain like the old paper bags.
Except in counties where they have been banned.
Most banned single use plastic you are still allowed thicker so called re-usable bags.
not for long
now the idiots are starting petitions to ban those also
My wife one, me one too, but it’s not a shopping for the week, and it’s just 1 km around the corner. I’m on the way to my 70, so not the youngest one too.
I cycle roughly every other day, about 20-25 km depending on route to pick up daily supplies- bread, milk and perishables in a backpack from a Lidl about 2km away. I’m 71 on Friday I do it to keep active an see the countryside as I live on the edge of town.
We waste less food as Scot wasting money hurts me deeply
Easily enough for 2 days. Plus parking right next to the entrance is a breeze, my local mall even has bike racks.
And if you need more, then you drive. Its pretty simple. Or if its dodgy weather, you know, just use your brain a bit to decide what to do.
So… you split the difference and take advantage of the bike rack fitted to the back of your car?? 😀
I carry a week’s worth of shopping on my back and in bags and walk the 1.5 miles each way
In my 60s
Can’t afford (or want) an EV
And what do you do if you live where it snows much of the year? All the green dreams require a total lack of contact with reality.
Riding a bicycle on icy/snowy roads is fun! Crash helmet definitely recommended.
They got a fix for that too!
When I was in Pt. Barrow in 1967, many of the homes had overturned snowmobiles in what passed for yards. Reminded me of cars in the south that had provided a transmission or differential for the preferred transportation.
When Spring comes in the Arctic, all the snow doesn’t melt at the same time. The natives would drive their snowmobiles in a straight line, without regard for whether they were on snow or gravel. The gravel was hard on the snowmobiles and shortened their lifespan.
I imagine that the tractorized bicycle above would suffer the same fate.
LOL. Works fine if the roads are snow covered, but if they plow while you’re shopping the trip home might be…challenging, to say the least.
Just don’t brake or turn, and you’ll be all right.
As youngster I biked in snow and ice, now of course not, and thanks CC, it doesn’t snow to much here.
I’m seventy years old and recovering from cancer. Believe me, I have neither the desire or the physical ability to bicycle to the local grocery store or Wal-Mart.
The good news is that Kroger/Safeway/SuperKing is offering home delivery for a modest charge. Although, the downside is that meat or fruit might not be the choice you would have made in person.
I am 78 years old and in good health but my bicycle is electric with a 50 kilometer range. I also pull a cart behind for my dog or groceries.
There are supermarkets within that range but I usually shop at more reasonably priced stores beyond that range. I use freezers and a pantry to keep my major shopping down to less than monthly.
If my wealth level allowed it I would definitely like to have a fun electric car. Practical? Not at all. I place them on the same level as a corvette. Fun driving for summer use only.
I never let my fuel tank get below 1/4 and I think you need at least a 25% reserve charge on an electric as well. That allows for unforeseen circumstances but sharply reduces the practical range.
I live in a small rural hamlet so I can see where city dwellers could have a more practical use. But if they don’t live in the suburbs where would they park and charge? I think you would need a garage or at the very least a private driveway.
I’m pretty sure it is not a good idea to park and charge an EV in your garage. An acquaintance has a crappy-range EV and put its charging outlet on an outside fence.
I am sure a detached garage would let you sleep better.
However we regularly park vehicles with tanks of highly explosive fuel and hundreds of feet of electric cables with potential for shorts in our garages. We also have multiple tools and electronics with various batteries including lithium-ion in our homes and garages, so our perception of risk may be somewhat skewed.
The real issue is warning and escape time in case of a dangerous incident. Insurance covers most of the rest.
For Chevrolet Bolts,GM is recommending strongly not to keep them in the garage until they fix the battery fire issues. https://gmauthority.com/blog/2021/07/gm-once-again-asking-chevy-bolt-ev-owners-to-park-their-cars-outside/ I own a Chevrolet Volt, it has ICE generator, best concept for Electric out there and they shut it down
Get your dog to pull the bicycle. Better for both of you and the Earth (just don’t exhale any CO2).
Consider yourself lucky that you don’t live in Phoenix. A typical Summer day might be 106 deg F — sometimes getting up to 118. Actually, much of the west sees temperatures over 100 in the Summer. You don’t want to be riding over black pavement at those temperatures.
Actually, even riding in a car without A/C at those temperatures is uncomfortable and drains one’s energy. But, it is tolerable to the young and physically fit. However, trying to ride a bicycle in South Eastern states or Gulf states, with high humidity, can easily lead to hyperthermia. The humidity is just enervating!
That happened to me on a bike tour. I overheated and went though two and a half quarts of water in twenty miles finally having to stop and wait for the SAG wagon. The next day, after a good nights rest, I still didn’t have any legs. I was lucky the ride was shorter that day. Heat just sucks the life out of you. 😰
Actually, riding a bike, or even walking in Phoenix is an exercise in exploring your tolerance for risk and risking life and limb. If the heat doesn’t get you, the crazy drivers will!
Of course, it doesn’t help that many people do things like get drunk/high and walk or ride across streets while wearing all black and not in crosswalks, also, while paying no attention to the traffic. Trying not to hit crazy pedestrians and cyclists is a serious challenge in Phoenix.
As for no A/C, our daughter followed us to Phx when we moved there in 2000. She was terrified by the traffic, so we bought her a 1988 Cadillac. It was a yacht. It was fine so long as you didn’t forget to give it it’s bottle of oil every four hours.
It had another issue. The switch that controlled the Air and Heater was broken and only worked intermittently and you never knew which you were going to get but whichever you got, you couldn’t turn it off. Trust me when I say that riding around in a car in Phx. when the outside temperature was 110 with the heater on provides an excellent preview of what life in Hell must be like.
I have driven a Corvette with the heater on full on a hot Summer day in the mountains because the engine needed the extra cooling from the passenger compartment heat exchanger to keep from over heating. The 327 ci block was over-bored to 350 and the stock radiator wasn’t up to the job climbing hills.
Electric scooter is real alternative for distances up to 2 miles. It is actually usually faster than car on those distances. Slower speed is balanced by faster start, no need for opening garage, search park place, parking…
I used it also in winter, in 3 to 7 minutes transfer time you simply have no time to get cold or wet.
No, it assumes that you would take public transport or rent a suitable vehicle for the tiny minority of trips over 200 miles. But guilty as charged. Our annual St. Louis to Pismo Beach round trips would be impossible without our Chev Colorado diesel/ Escape 5.0 TA combo. Or not, since a pickup could be rented – even with bed hitch – for much less than we spend to keep our one 4 wheeled vehicle. And also since most of our other trips are either on Metrolink or our 2 ebikes (with BikeBob trailer for groceries), our truck is a maintenance heavy indulgence.
Sidebar. Aren’t Ram Eco-Diesels POS’s, durability wise? As a Columbus Indiana native, the Cummins’s rule, even with their noise.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Distribution-of-distance-driven-per-vehicle-day-on-days-when-the-vehicle-was-driven_fig5_279853330
We ran two vehicles until 2018 when we realised we only needed one since most long distance trips we took were with our F150 2.7EB towing our Escape 5.0TA. The savings on insurance alone worth it, never mind maintenance on a nine year old car. As far as EV’s go even if range and charging time are improved substantially I can’t see us ever owning one.
Another example where misused averages utterly fail to represent people specifically or to represent their actual needs.
As well as vehicles that support all of a persons transportation needs, not some specious average trips of urbanites who rarely travel a few miles.
And the biggest reason to keep the Deep State out of selecting my mode of transportation? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. My personal preferences trump all attempts of the government to regulate my personal decisions.
The U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment is the citizens’ ultimate defense against Socialist overreach.
“Another example where misused averages utterly fail to represent people specifically or to represent their actual needs.”
Too bad you failed to read my actual comment. I don’t doubt that e cars/trucks are impractical for X country trips. And for those who flip the stats on average use, IC vehicle ownership might still make sense. Just not for the rest of us – me included. We would be much better off with e vehicles or no vehicles and just renting what we need, when we need it.
“As well as vehicles that support all of a persons transportation needs, not some specious average trips of urbanites who rarely travel a few miles.”
The stats I provided are for ALL drivers. Again, reading comprehension is your friend…
Paternalistic. Get rid of the we and speak for yourself. Everyone has different transportation requirements.
“Get rid of the we and speak for yourself.”
My “we” was my wife and I.
“Everyone has different transportation requirements.”
As I stated quite plainly in my last post. But MOST of us would indeed be be better off with e/no vehicles owned, renting what we need, when we need it.
You want to use your F450 like a Rascal scooter – as many do – KYSO. But only after you pay an equitable carbon tax, fully, regularly, equitably rebated to the rest of us (after paying off CCS projects at the carbon tax rate), AND paying the fuel prices that result from the hydrocarbon prices that allow for full bonding of our Trumpian YUGE past and future oil and gas asset retirement obligations. Milton Friedman would approve…
I always like socialists speaking of peoples’ “indulgences” when they want to spend other peoples’ MONEY.
Still haven’t provided a comparison the retirement plans for unreliable power to that of oil and gas.
“I always like socialists speaking of peoples’ “indulgences” when they want to spend other peoples’ MONEY.”
Please provide any reference to whatever money you claim I want to spend.
“Still haven’t provided a comparison the retirement plans for unreliable power to that of oil and gas.”
Asset retirement for renewables will be a fraction of that for hydrocarbons. First off, there is a century old legacy of 11-12 figures worth of shirked hydrocarbon asset retirement obligations, bonded at pennies on the dollar. It will probably be communized onto the rest of us, as most extractive asset retirement obligations have been, but they will still come due. Then, there’s the fact that renewable sites are, by definition, the best available for this purpose. They have not been depleted, as hydrocarbon acreage has. So, equipment will be removed, better equipment installed, and the same land used over and over for millennia.
This is simple stuff…..
Neighbour has a Tesla 3 (park inside) and a Toyota RAV4. Which do you think they use for camping? Wife is just retired and her commute was 10km/day
Lets say someone was going camping in a EV. They would need heavy camping equipment and basic stores. There are four people. It is raining and twilight so the lights are on, the heating or aircon is on, the radio is on, the windscreen wipers are on. The route is very hilly. The camp site in the middle of nowhere.
Realistically how many miles would you get with that scenario? Far enough to get to your camp site?
Then you have to find a recharging point before you can do any sightseeing
Change that scenario slightly to a cold journey when the battery is not as efficient.
Three words…
Honda Pull Start
(And GALLONS of gas to run it for the 24-48 hours needed)
And a lot of pissed off camping neighbors.
Most campgrounds have rules for quiet hours. I’ve reported noisy selfish sobs to the campground office/manager when their noise is really annoying and interminable.
Once when some rude campers running noisy equipment after midnight refused to comply, the park ranger kicked them out.
Campers all around the noisy campsite applauded as the inconsiderate were escorted off site at about 1AM.
Hard to force a depleted EV to vacate when they’re uncharged
They can be towed away either at owners expense in the towing, or at owners expense to get back from impound.
My wife had an A-hole father and 5 unruly brothers. They liked to camp and her father kept a kettle of beans that was constantly refreshed, never emptied and cleaned. Her stepmother refused to go along with them. When she got old enough, my wife also refused.
They had extremely loud mountain bikes and liked to ride the bikes and hoot & holler around the campsites. On one occasion, a bunch of campers formed a “lynch mob” and physically removed them from the campground.
The batteries are also not efficient in very hot weather. See the link I provided earlier regarding practical experience in hot weather.
Well yeah but EVERYONE knows that once were converted to all electric transportation, the whims of weather will be automatically tamed and it will NEVER be TOO WARM or TOO COLD or TOO RAINY or TOO DRY. It will become a Utopia the likes of which we have never known. /sarc (Justin Case)
Try to imagine the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones and EV for the military.
Maybe long lines of multi-wheel drive diesel truck mounted generators?
Question: Do most politicians have common sense, or is it uncommon in those ranks?
Inland Australia in summer causes solar panel ineffficiencies and failure, and then add the dusty conditions.
A farmer told me that solar powered agricultural pumps out in those remote areas do not last ten years, pumps used to draw water from bores into troughs for cattle to drink.
Saw a post on a camping site that campgrounds are starting to say you cannot charge your EV onsite. Most campgrounds I have been to would be hard pressed to cover a trickle charge EV battery and certainly not any of the fast chargers.
I regularly travel towing a medium sized caravan weighing 1,800 kg when legally fully loaded.
There are a couple of expensive EV capable of towing it, meaning double or more the retail price of the 4WD diesel I own, but with extremely limited range even fully charged because after discounting the variable factors that use energy in an EV the extra 1,800 kg towed behind cuts range in half at least.
And looking for recharge points in Australia’s remote inland countryside is an inconvenience factor I do not need during my travels in retirement.
Just the majority of real world driving conditions cuts the supposed (and still inadequate) “range” of battery EVs in half, never mind towing something.
The “range” estimates are probably based on a 100% charge (which they don’t recommend you keep it at for safety reasons, so you can immediately multiply that by 80%), and is also based on a fantasy world of 70-something degrees F, flat, dry roads, no wind, single occupant and no luggage (much less towing), ridiculously low operating speeds, and NO “accessory” use – no lights, wipers, HVAC, radio, navigation system, heated seats/steering wheels, vented seats, or cell phone chargers or other “plug ins” whatsoever.
Now, compare that to reality, and you can chop your 80% of 100% of already inadequate “range” in half just for starters. And the more extreme the operating conditions, the more likely it ill be even worse. Highway speeds cut pretty deep into the supposed “range,” so unless you like to meander along the “back roads,” you can assume faster you go = less distance you CAN go without recharging.
In other words, useless in the real world. A virtue-signalling toy for wealthy hypocrites.
Most households will have 2 vehicles…
‘In 2019, households in England had an average of 1.21 cars. However if we exclude London (the area with the lowest rate of vehicle ownership) then the typical English household had 1.3 cars. In London, households had 0.74 cars, meaning on average not every household has a car.’
Bloody hell griff! Was that contact with reality?
Clearly it wasn’t as his first sentence doesn’t match the source he’s quoting (which is typical of the griffter).
Most households don’t want one of the two to be useless.
I’m not in England, but I’ve got enough personally-owned cars (and trucks) for five average English households…
Math was never your friend was it griff.
First you claim that most households have two vehicles, then you cite a figure that says the average household has 1,21 cars. That’s every house having one car and every 5th house having a second. Last time I checked 1 in 5 is way, way short of “most”.
Secondly, you have been demanding that all ICE vehicles be banned. That would mean that most households have two useless cars. Assuming they can afford the car and the electricity to charge it.
Ignoring London for some stupid reason (I mean, 9 million out of 55 million people in England live in London)…1.3 cars per household is nowhere close to “most households will have 2 vehicles.” Excluding the possibility of 3 car households, the best you can get at 1.3 cars/household is 30% (13 cars per 10 households). 30% falls way short of “most.”
This is like your failed analogy where eating 3 hamburgers every day for a week was a total of 20 hamburgers.
LOL, math clearly isn’t griff’s strong suit.
And Bolt owners have to wait six moths for the fix to the battery back that makes them sometimes burn up. It’s going to be an exciting six months for them, playing EV Russian roulette every time they use their EV.
Here in Canada, about once every 2 years most cities have a freezing rain snow storm where a 20 – 30 minute commute becomes 4 hrs. Don’t think the heater can operate for that long
Don’t think an EV would last 4 hrs under those conditions without the heat on.
The weather in Calgary is pretty F*^&$d up but the one thing we don’t get is freezing rain. I’ve seen it once at my place in Fernie BC ….skating on the highway … fun on skates … not so much fun in a car. Where I grew up in Ottawa freezing rain was almost a yearly occurrence during the 1960’s & 70’s.
But not value for money as a city car.
Has anyone thought about land use? If it takes 120 times as long to charge up as at a gas station and there is usually 6 cars taking 5 minutes to fill up at our stations, that’s 720 cars charging up. Where are you going to park 720 cars?
Not to mention where the mega watts worth of power needed to charge those 720 cars will come from?
Willis, your comments started a lot of discussion, including many wrong or misleading facts presented by both sides. I am especially entertained by quotes from 2017 trying to be used to criticize the current state of a rapidly changing technology. Charging rates are way up. Teslas precondition the battery for charging efficiency and safety on the way to the supercharger. But Willis, some of your comments show more bias than facts, and this is a shame, because it could change the perception of many (including myself) that have enjoyed your comments on a wide range of subjects on this site. The Tesla Model 3 was best-selling premium sedan in the world in Q1 2021, gas or electric. Ford and Chevy no longer produce sedans, making this easier. Tesla’s cheap car, made possible by the higher priced models, is yet to appear. They use the profits from their limited production of each generation of more expensive cars to fund the technology developments of each successive generation of less expensive, more advanced models, with higher production numbers. Their next price target is $25k. In addition, in 2014, Tesla gave away the rights to all for free, fair use of all of its Patents. This allowed the great advancements by all worldwide manufacturers in the technology. Forcing electric car use on all makes no sense, economically or from a ‘save the earth’ stance as many have pointed out. Neither does driving a Porsche Turbo SUV than can go 150mph. But as Porsche pointed out when asked, “Of what practical value does a 150mph SUV have?”, producing a practical vehicle is not their market. Musk wants the profits to fund his trip to Mars…
Thanks, Rude. Regarding Tesla’s patents, see here. You’re being fooled by Elon, but then you’re far from the first.
Next, as you say, Tesla’s “cheap car, made possible by the higher-priced models, is yet to appear” … funny, that.
Regarding luxury sedan sales, guess where that claim comes from? Yep. Elon. Is it true? Who knows.
And why would anyone care who makes the most luxury sedans? All that proves is that people with excess money who buy luxury cars like to virtue-signal that they’re rich but gosh they are wonderful people who really, truly care about the environment … does that actually impress you? I hope not.
Next, somehow Henry Ford built the factories and changed an industry without getting $2.4 BILLION in your and my taxpayer money as Tesla did … plus rebates for wealthy people to buy electric toys. Oh, plus $1.3 BILLION in subsidies for his battery factory … and now, the government is going to put in 75,000 EV chargers as part of the “infrastructure” plan …
(People don’t understand how big a billion is. A million seconds is eleven days. A billion seconds is ~ 32 YEARS …)
So please, no more hagiography of Musk. He’s a genius, true. He’s also a scammer who is a parasite on our tax dollars. And I can’t find anyone who has gotten the claimed range out of his vehicles in year-round real-world conditions.
Thanks for posing interesting questions,
w.
PS—You say Teslas “precondition the battery” to increase charging rates. What that means is that they use a bunch of the battery charge to pre-heat the battery before you get to the charger. That energy is wasted, up in smoke … and you see wasting energy as a benefit? You’re wasting energy to shorten charge time … not sure how that’s a good deal for the planet.
There are reasons Ford, Chevy, and others are kicking sedans to the curb…dying market Rise of S.U.V.s: Leaving Cars in Their Dust, With No Signs of Slowing – The New York Times (nytimes.com).
Tesla couldn’t hit their $35k target. They pulled that lowest-level model shortly after announcing the Model 3 was available. But they’re going to hit their $25k target? Announced for 2023? Sure. In 2018, Musk said it would arrive in 2021. Oops. Tesla has 3 more models to start production on before the $25k one. And that $25k model will likely be built in China. So don’t hold your breath.
How many years ago was it that Musk had a fake demonstration of a battery swap that would bypass the need to wait for a charge?
I hear that about one-third of EV owners end up going back to internal combustion engines, because charging the EV is too much of a hassle. That’s what one reporter on tv was reporting yesterday.
They are pushing an immature technology down our throats.
There’s a vaccine for that.
They are actually pushing a mature, but impractical, technology down our throats.
Yes, the first Studebakers, around 1910, were electric.
The 1905 Baker Electric had a range of 90 miles. We haven’t seen much improvement in 115 years
And then along came Henry and released his Model T Ford with internal combustion engine, petrol/gas tank and room on the running boards for spare tins of fuel.
This site neither opposes nor supports those.
Individuals on this site have a bad habit of ridiculing stupid ideas and the people who push them. But the site has nothing to do with that.
You really do have a persecution complex.
Get over yourself
Mark, I take it you are a fan of Arrhenius? He was the first Peak Oiler, among other things.
This is quite an interesting article explaining how we got into this mess today. Greta Thunberg And Eco-Eugenics https://climatecite.com/greta-thunberg-and-eco-eugenics-2/
Arrhenius, besides being the first Peak Oiler, and Greenhouse Earther was, also, the first Alarmist. “…Any alarmism worth its salt has an end-game (massive social change) and so must also offer solutions that will bring about this desired result. Accordingly, Arrhenius suggested that the use of oil and coal be limited, if not eliminated; that electricity replace oil as an energy source; that fuel efficiency be practiced; that bio-fuels be used; that atomic energy be developed. Arrhenius, in fact, gave modern environmentalism all of its talking points.
“…But how did his ideas [ARRHENIUS] become foundational to environmentalism today? Arrhenius was largely ignored until 1979, when the Charney Report, entitled, “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment” was published. It relied heavily on Arrhenius and thus gave him instant legitimacy. Then, in 1990, the IPCC used the Charney Report as the basis for its own report, which turned Arrhenius’s hypotheses of man-made climate change and global warming into “settled science.” Henceforth, climate could only and “correctly” be viewed through the lens of Arrhenius. Those who refused or objected would be labeled as “deniers” – i.e., heretics….”
Arrhenius was right about one thing, nuclear power. It’s a shame that the one thing he was correct about, they failed to follow, unlike all the other garbage they chose to adopt when it became convenient for them.
Oh, he was, also, a huge fan of Eugenics but that’s a story for another day, though, with all the CAGWers in power today and all their talk about “too many people on Earth,” I would not be surprised to see some version of Eugenics reincarnated.
Eugenics was already in fashion and tried successfully
In a month it’s the 80th anniversary of Babi Yar.
1932-33 (almost 90 yrs ago)
Ukraine famine estimates between 3.3 and 7.5million starved to death.
China’s Great Leap Forward led to the Great Famine during 1958-1962, was responsible for 30 million people starved to death.
Actually, he was right about something else.
He said if humans could warm the climate by emitting CO2 into the atmosphere through the buring of fossil fuels, it would improve the climate.
In your juvenile mind, unless a site does what you tell it to, then it is actively opposing you.
I’ve read the articles you submitted. They were utter garbage.
They also weren’t articles, at best they were paragraphs.
Get over yourself.
Learn to behave like a professional.
Learn how to fully understand a subject before pontificating and declaring that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is ignorant and against you.
>>Learn how to fully understand a subject before pontificating and declaring that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is ignorant and against you<< if he was capable of that he wouldn’t be an alarmist.
And it will always be an immature technology.
Well to belay all arguments about “maturity,” why don’t we just say that it will always be a useless technology.
Hauling around batteries that weigh a great deal, take a long time to charge, don’t last very long under reasonably expected operating conditions, and are potential inextinguishable firebombs will never be a viable replacement for liquid fuels.
According to this study is was 20% and most of those were PEV hybrid owners. Those who bought straight EV’s were less likely to return. If you bought a Tesla then less likely again.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/energy/551207-new-study-explains-why-nearly-20-percent-of-electric
TheHill, really?
Doesn’t take much to impress you.
I can see why you hold the views you do if you think The Hill is some left wing rag. It’s pretty neutral in reality.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-hill/
Yeah not left at all … do we need to ask him if he is a card carrying member
https://muckrack.com/christian-spencer/articles
Ah yes, the old all socialists are actually middle of the road line, that the socialists keep telling each other.
“if you think The Hill is some left wing rag. It’s pretty neutral in reality.”
Tell it to the reporter, Simon. You say 20 percent, he said 33 percent. He didn’t differentiate between hybrids and all-electrics in his report.
And how many had one or more other, gas of diesel powered vehicles in their “household” already? I imagine there would be a far higher percentage of “returns” for people who had ONLY an EV, since there then wouldn’t be a better alternative at hand.
I know four people who have purchased Teslas, two Ss and two 3s. One dumped his 3 after one winter, the poor winter performance was not acceptable for him. Two regularly use their Ss for ~ 1/2 hour each way commutes and seem quite happy with them. One has a 3, lives in Boston, and regularly comes to NJ to visit family. She flies, of course, an hour long recharge stop in the middle of the five hour drive is still not quite enough to make it all the way with a margin of safety.
EG, my brother who took his EV in the annual town parade. The next year he bought a hybrid because the EV just would not do it. Now they are a 2-car family. But they do not use plastic wrap in the kitchen and recycle religiously and feel very green.
I think the people pushing this have invested heavily in motels with charging stations as a feature rather than swimming pools.
Charging, $1.00. Meals and sleeping pad, $150.
Meals and sleeping, about 9 hours of time invested.
Fully recharging a typical BEV at a typical charging station, about 12 hours invested.
“ I drive a 2016 Ram Ecodiesel pickup truck with about a 500 mile range.”
“Range” is not the important parameter. The distance you travel before “range anxiety” forces you to stop is the important number. This is determined not only by the distance to run out of fuel, the possible damage from running low or out, and the availability of refueling stations. EVs are particularly bad on the latter two, and likely cut the actual range at least in half. Running out is no fun with most diesels, either.
Then there’s the weight factor and also the topography.
I drive to Las Vegas from Santa Rosa 612 miles (12 hours) almost yearly and have driven from Santa Rosa to Seattle 735 miles (16 hours) a few times
You drive too slowly!
The faster you drive, the less range you get.
An Australian EV enthusiast with too much time on his hands drove around Australia on Highway One in a Tesla 3, he admitted that the most economic speed was 80 kmh (50 mph) and I wondered how heavy transport truck drivers would react catching up to the slow moving road hazard as their vehicle thundered along at 100 kmh or higher speed, and needed to overtake?
We have Road Trains here: Semi-trailer is a prime mover and one trailer, then a B-Double has two interconnected trailers on turntable hitches and then prime movers connected to up to four trailers.
On 12 – 16 hour trips one must stop for meals refueling and potty stops. Those hours are trip time not driving time
I drive long distances, on average 50,000 kms a year all over Australia and I stop for fuel, a drink and maybe a light meal but waiting for up to an hour for an 80% EV recharge and therefore 20% less range than when fully charged is not to my liking.
And that’s before “real world” driving conditions cut that in half, and your well-reasoned “range anxiety” cuts that in half again.
Folks who live in the country across America’s Midwest, Southwest and Western states routinely drive long distances.
Three hundred miles is a short drive.
500 to 1,000 miles is a days drive to a little over a day.
Many Eastern commuters, campers, hikers, sports involved, fishing, hunting and all commercial drivers routinely drive far beyond alleged expansive EV limits.
Calculating pretend vehicle mileage averages that mostly encompass nondriving city dweller driving distances are falsehoods when applied to almost anyone living in a rural area and especially those living west of the Mississippi.
And yes, most of these folks do not worry about range. What matters more is how many fill-ups will it require to reach the destination and open gas stations along the way.
Nor are these people fools. No-one serious about driving safely long distances fails to carry water and extra fuel when fuel stops are few and far apart.
Driving across Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and even California I never carried less than two steel 5 gallon cans of fuel.
My experience driving across Texas all my life is that I have never had trouble finding fuel. The idea of carrying an extra 10 gal of fuel seems foreign.
The only time I was worried about finding gas in Texas was Christmas Day 1976. My new wife and I had left Fort Bliss (El Paso) around 4 in the morning and were traveling back to visit her parents in New York. We were 250 miles east of El Paso getting on I20 and I realized that it was 7 am Christmas morning and no gas stations were open. But we found one that was open when we were almost down to fumes. It was some little station on the side of the road. Thank God it was open. Back then you didn’t find the large mega gas complexes we have today.
In hindsight it was stupid to leave that early Christmas morning traveling East on I10. The longest stretch of practically uninhabited highway in the US. Back then I10 wasn’t even finished. But I was right out of College and not really thinking.
While we were retiring to Nor.Cal, from So.Cal, I drove the 440 miles from the LA area to north of Sacramento, on I5, using 11 gallons of gas and taking 5.8 hours with no stops, [ averaging 75 mph] .
My ’97 Chevy Cavalier is a 2.2L, 5 speed…. remember manual transmissions.
I’d inflate the low RR Michelins to max pressure of 44 psi…
Oh, and I paid $12k for it in 1997…[ 0,15 Teslas ]
I drive an Isuzu MU-X 4WD SUV, a 2017 model purchased new but with a diesel fuel tank providing 850 kms range (500 miles is 800 kms), the latest 2021 model can achieve 1,000 kms with a larger fuel tank installed.
Refuelling from near empty take several minutes including paying the bill.
Is there even one EV that can match the range of 850 kms and recharge that quickly?
And could that EV tow 3,000 kg if required?
Too bad, I will buy ICEV until EV can match the real world importance performance and pricing, 0-100 kmh in under 5 seconds does not interest me at all, but I know the Highway Patrol could be interested on public roads.
And since the “range” is probably already at about 40% “best case” due to recommendation not to “store” with greater than 80% charge, and all the ridiculous assumptions about operating conditions vs. the real world cutting THAT in half, you’re probably talking about 50% of 40% of “estimated” range best case before you are nervously looking for the next advertised “charging station.”
In other words, useless for all but wealthy virtue-signalling hypocrites.
It takes me 15 minutes to recharge my Tesla Model 3 from almost empty to 80% full. I have 310 miles of range. I’ve enjoyed many multi-thousand mile road trips. Buy a Tesla.
Thanks, but no thanks – I’ll pass….
Tesla is the ONLY one that can say that due to their exclusive SUPERCHARGERs but the initial cost of even the 3 can buy you 2 ICE vehicles that recharge in 5 minutes. Try your trips again but avoid the Superchargers
Unlikely. you can get an 80% charge from a purpose built charger in an hour, so I think you are exaggerating the other way to Willis.
15 minutes will be arund a 25% charge replenishment that would take you from a little under half charged to a little over. If of course you can find a tesla charger
Tesla superchargers are being built that are 250kW. The Model 3 midrange battery is 62kWh. Do the math.
Does his statement apply universally to charging everywhere? No.
Is he lying? No but he’s stretching the truth for sure.
Is your argument and understanding of charging sound re: “you can get an 80% charge from a purpose built charger in an hour” ? No.
I’m not calling you a liar, Mike, but I don’t believe you.
Your charging claim does not match commercial specs or the slightly poorer real-world observations. https://www.zap-map.com/charge-points/tesla-model-3-charging-guide/
And on enjoying many multi-thousand mile road trips, I have to ask what circumstances or kind of idiot would enjoy that hassle?
Part of what makes the fairy tale so amazing is that dealers admit that high mileage Teslas and EVs in general are very rare.
scissor, it’s ok to call someone telling lies a liar.
I thought perhaps given the chance to correct himself, then he might come clean. I thought wrong.
Your link states that when connected to Tesla super charger it will reach 80% charge in 20minutes. Mike said 15. not a big different. In any case with a tesla and using a teal supper charger you could drive 600 miles iin about 10 hours with one 1 hour break for a full charge. That is a total of 11 hours add one more hour of supper charging you could drive another 4 hours. At that point you need to sleep.
So for a tesla with the supper charger network you can drive very long distances without long multi hour charging times. For most other EV made by the major manufactures you have to wait several hours to get a full charge if you can find a fast charger. But most public chargers are slow chargers. so long drives are not practical non Tesla EVs.
“Your link states that when connected to Tesla super charger it will reach 80% charge in 20minutes. Mike said 15. not a big different. “
That’s out of date and quotes charging rates of 120kW. There are 250kW chargers now.
No, I’m buying another Suburban this year to replace my present one, the fourth I’ve owned.
Funny that the Tesla website doesn’t back you up. It says it takes 20 minutes with a “Supercharger”. 5.5 hours with a “Fast” charger, and 20 hours with a “Slow” charger. How many Superchargers are there around? If you only drive around LA, quite a few. Between Portland and Seattle, none.
Isn’t there a longevity penalty for the supercharging? If so, then it increases the cost per mile over the life of the vehicle.
Tesla typically has a supper charger every 90 miles or so along major freways. On the tesla supper charger map I count 12 supper chargers between canids and portland along the Interstate 5 corridor. And even more between Portland and LA. There are 25000 supper chargers world wide with 1088 supper charger stations in the US with many station having multiple supper chargers. Just go to the tesla site and look a the supper charger map.
What happens if two drivers want to recharge at the same time?
Pistols at ten paces.
Most Tesla Supercharger sites near shopping centers, freeways, etc. have between 8 and 24 charging stations.
The map in the car will tell you how many of them are in use.
If you’re using the map for routing it will predict availability based on usage and plot your charging stops based on best availability and minimum total charging time.
You are counting the number of charging ports, not the number of charging stations.
Hilarious. There are dozens and dozens of photos online showing massive lines at the chargers. See here.
Wow, there is another Steven F posting on this site. Popular name I guess.
I recall that at Thanksgiving in 2019, there so many Teslas on the road between Seattle and Los Angeles that the wait times to get to a Tesla Charger were up to 10 hours. Maybe they have more chargers, but imagine showing up with very little remaining charge and then having to wait hours to get to the charger.
I have never seem an EV charging station much less a Tesla super charger–by the way I have been to two state capitals in the last year.
Everything you need to know about charging a tesla
How Long Does it Take to Charge a Tesla? – AutoPilot Review
I think you underestimate the time and it depends if other vehicles also want charging. Frequent fast charging does not do the battery any good.
At $80000 the Tesla is not cheap but for an EV performs quite well, but not as well as a conventional car. You do know the moral and ethical considerations of the materials used in the battery?
You should be thankful our taxes support your sports car.
That’s an outright lie, Mike. Car and Driver just did a good story on actiual charging times for many different models of EVs under favorable conditions. A Model 3 on the fastest Tesla supercharger takes a half hour to charge to 80%. However, frequent fast charging degrades the battery much faster than slow charging and is not recommended. If you have to share a charger with another car or use a standard supercharger charging times are substantially slower – could be an hour to get to 80%. The time to go to 100% charge is about twice that long as the charging rate in the last 20% slows waaay down to avoid damaging the battery.
I’m disgusted with you Tesla fan boys claiming 300 plus miles of range. The actual range of a Model 3 at highway speeds as tested by Car and Driver is 250 miles. If you run the car between 80% and 20% to limit battery degradation it’s more like 150 miles, and that’s only in pleasant weather. The 80-20 range is as little as 120 miles when it’s bitter cold, and that’s with a new, undegraded battery.
Does air conditioning reduce mileage as well as the heater? I have read that running the heater is an issue, as well, but don’t know if that is true, or not. Thanks.
Yes, running the A/C reduces range too, by up to 17% at 95F. Running the cabin heater isn’t the only reason range drops by 30 to 40% in very cold weather, the battery works extremely poorly in cold temperatures so EVs often need a battery heater too.
Our 80/20 experience is closer to 200 miles, but yeah, you might get the claimed 318 miles if you pumped the tires up to 60psi, charged to 100%, maintained a steady 50-55mph, and coasted to the charger at the other end on a stray amp or two.
My wife once called me wondering why the car was puking vast amounts of water onto the ground while it was standing still plugged into the Supercharger. This was in 100-degree SoCal weather, and the car was running the AC full blast to cool the pack while charging, pouring off a river of condensation.
That’s 20 minutes (minimum, assuming the charger doesn’t trip off and stop charging, as they are wont to do), and that requires the SuperCharger, and you can only do that a certain number of times before Tesla permanently limits your charge rate to prevent the battery spontaneously combusting.
Meanwhile, I can fill up my ICE vehicle in ~5 minutes, time after time after time after time, and I’m not permanently limited at some future point from filling at the maximum rate.
And I don’t have to replace my gas tank after a certain time, at an average cost of $13000 – $20,000… but you? You’re going to have your charge rate permanently limited at some point, and you will have to purchase a new battery at a cost of $13000 – $20000 at some point.
The economics don’t work out until gasoline gets more expensive than ~$4/gal, and the carbon dioxide emissions for a Tesla Model S right off the factory floor are more than a 40 MPG vehicle will emit over years and years.
From my drop-kicking another TeslaTard:
———-
Let’s talk emissions!
According to the DOE EV Emission Calculator, an EV in Illinois driving 12,000 miles per year will emit 2389 pounds of CO2 equivalent.
The Tesla 100 kWh battery requires ~30,600 pounds of CO2 to produce. We’ll assume both gasoline and EV vehicle production requires 30,000 pounds of CO2 emission.
A gasoline-fueled vehicle with 40 MPG fuel efficiency will emit 5,960 pounds CO2 per year at 12,000 miles/yr, per EPA.
Production + (Annual * T_gas) = Production + (Annual * T_EV)
30,000 + (5,960 * T_gas) = 30,000 + 30,600 + (2389 * T_EV)
Solving for T (years required for EV to offset emissions) gives a breakeven point of 8.569029 years and 102,828.348 miles. Before that breakeven point, the EV has emitted more CO2 than the gasoline-powered vehicle.
———-
Let’s talk economics! (Now updated to reflect actual average electricity price in Illinois, and a gasoline price above current average price)
Assumptions:
– A gas vehicle with 17 km L-1 fuel mileage
– An EV with 88.9891 Wh/km/1000 kg consumption and 2107 kg vehicle + 85 kg driver = 2192 kg total weight, for 195.0641072 Wh km-1 total consumption.
– 482803.2 km driven
– $1 L-1 for gasoline (~$3.785/gallon)
– $0.1332 kWh-1 for electricity
– The battery efficiency alone (power delivered to the battery vs. the power delivered by the battery) for Lithium batteries tops out at 90% for newer or highly-expensive batteries, and can be as low as 80% for older or consumer-grade batteries:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/sun1/
– The Tesla charger has a 92% efficiency for 240V at 24A, and 94% efficiency for 240V at 40A/80A:
https://forums.tesla.com/discussion/18017/charging-efficiency
– So, given that you have a used vehicle, we’ll be generous and assume 85% battery efficiency, and we’ll assume you’re charging at 24A:
100 * 0.85 * 0.92 = 78.2% “wall to battery” efficiency
Gas vehicle:
((482803.2 km / 17 km L-1) * $1 L-1) = $28,400.19
Electric vehicle:
((((482803.2 km * 195.0641072 Wh km-1) / 1000) / 0.782 efficiency) * $0.1332 kWh-1) = $16,041.50 + $13,000 battery replacement = $29041.50
Remember, that $13,000 battery replacement is a low-end quote… if can range up to $20,000, depending upon labor costs and complications.
$29041.50 > $28,400.19
I save $641.31 driving my ICE-powered vehicle 300,000 miles vs. your toy electric clowncar, even with gasoline price higher than it actually is. Gasoline prices are inflated in the US due to libtard politics… as of July 2021, the worldwide average price for gasoline was a mere $1.56 / gallon, making EVs an even worse choice outside the US.
———-
And the above just goes to show that what I frequently state is absolutely true:
“EVs are products designed for and marketed to people who are incapable of doing the simple math to determine that EVs are products designed for and marketed to people who are incapable of doing simple math.”
LOL
“that requires the SuperCharger, and you can only do that a certain number of times before Tesla permanently limits your charge rate to prevent the battery spontaneously combusting.”
tesla doesn’t permanently limit charging rate with frequent supper charger use. if they’d the face numerous lawsuits. That has not happened.
Any battery will be damaged if it overheats when charging. Tesla batteries are actively cooled when charging and driving to prevent overheating. Also the charge rate will slow as the pack gets close to full charge to prevent overcharging. I have talked to tesla owners and non reported problems supporting to the above claim.
Also every 15 minutes somewhere in the US are car catches fire while driving or while parked. Most are gas cars. very few are EVs but if you just look at the new and this site you would think that most car fire are in EVs. Which is not true. I work a mile away from the tesla factory. I see a lot of teslas daily I have also gotten gas near tesla supper charger sites. How many tesla fires have I seen, zero
That’s almost 2200 per year. I find that hard to believe. In 60 years of driving I have never had a car catch fire! I have actually only witnessed a couple of cars burning along side the road in all those years.
How about a citation for your claim?
Tesla most certainly does permanently limit charge rate if you’ve used SuperCharging a lot. In the case mentioned, they limited it to 90 kW (top charge rate is 120 kW).
https://electrek.co/2017/05/07/tesla-limits-supercharging-speed-number-charges/
As to fires, the NFPA acknowledges that EVs currently have lower fire numbers because:
1) They’re sold to people who can afford to take care of them, being expensive vehicles. So maintenance isn’t generally deferred.
2) They’re relatively new and haven’t had the deferred maintenance and breakdowns of older vehicles.
As EVs come down in price and as used EVs enter the market at prices where even the barely-managing-to-survive can afford them, they’ll undergo the same deferment of battery replacement as ICE cars experience deferment of maintenance, and we’ll see the number of fires skyrocket.
Remember, the same battery technology is used in grid-scale battery farms, and thus far, of the 200 tracked grid-scale battery farms, 2% of them have erupted into unquenchable hellfire flames… you can imagine how embarrassed you’re going to be if EVs match that percentage.
An ICE fire is easily put out with water or foam… an EV is practically unquenchable unless the entire vehicle is dunked in water, and even then, the vehicle has to be placed somewhere where it’s at least 50 feet away from anything combustible, and watched for as long as a week for any signs that it’s going to reignite.
“According to Tesla engineers, once vehicle has been DC fast charged over a specified amount, the battery management system restricts DC charging to prevent degradation of the battery pack. According to Tesla engineers, this vehicle has seen significant DC fast charging and is now has permanently restricted DC charging speeds.”
And the more you use the SuperCharger, the more your charge rate is limited. Permanently.
There are several million times more ICE cars than EV. On average the ICE cars are much older as well
PS: The active cooling is able to dissipate 90kW+ of power during charging? That’s impressive, if true.
Clyde:
I did not check your calculation but it is ballpark to a Nov 2019 MIT
report: https://energy.mit.edu/insightsintofuturemobility
Bottom line: BEVs were not cost effective wrt an ICE (they compared it
a Tesla to a Toyota Camry) and likely won’t be for ~10 years or so.
Mainly due to costs of the battery (and MIT assumed you would NOT
ever have to replace the battery).
And don’t forget Insurance: the Tesla costs more as well.
Last year I got quotes for a used Tesla3 and it was ~$600 more per
year to insure than a new Sonata.
Wow, $600 more? I only pay $248 / yr through GEICO for my vehicle. I do get a discount through my employer, though.
GEICO – Government Employee Insurance Company
If you work for any government entity (or government contractor), you qualify for that discount.
When I moved from CA back to AL, my commute went from ~1 mile to ~15 miles (both one way), and my insurance for 6 months dropped to substantially less than 1 month had been in CA, with better coverage in Alabama.
Basically, based on personal experience, the rates are circa 90% less in some places than others.
Auto insurance rates are highly dependent on location (and also on the driver’s age and record).
I can fill my car in 5
Slacker
And you won’t damage your car by doing so.
You can fast charge your battery, or you can have full life from your batteries.
You can’t have both.
Wow…Where’d you find a 1,200 amp, 240 vac charger, assuming a 90kWhr battery.?
What happens to your mileage in cold, or hot weather with the heater or A/C running? How many miles do Tesla batteries last before they must be replaced and what is the cost of replacing a Tesla battery?
I have read that replacing an EV’s battery is very expensive and that the battery drains very fast if running the heater or A/C.
Not good value for money in my view, premium price with too many inconveniences when compared to an equivalent ICEV
So 15 minutes after you reach the Tesla sponsored (for how long?) “Superchargers,” which aren’t exactly found everywhere. Now add 15 minutes for every car in front of you (if the masses were to foolishly adopt BEVs in quantity). I’ll be about 12 miles (or more) down the road if you’re first in line, and you can add another 15 miles (or more) down the road for every car in front of you – and I would be able to do far less “fuel stops” than you will have to do “recharges” to safely reach my destination without being stranded.
Plus, my car won’t spontaneously start an inextinguishable fire in my garage or while I’m in the middle of a trip. And my “range” grows at highway speeds, while your (fictitious) range shrinks.
I’m not downgrading to a Tesla.
Well, in the U.S. the State will use the new “infrastructure” to disable the vehicle once you’ve exceeded your State determined allowance of miles per week. You’ll be using your boots or your bicycle to get around until next week.
And those new mandated electric trucks will be turned off from Socialist Central, so no one will be able to get groceries.
you can get 80% or more charge from a dedicated fatst charger in an hour Willis, EVs are bad, you don’t need to step of the path ot truth to make them look it. Really
1) How often is the supercharger only charging one car? If there are a lot of travelers trying to charge up at the same time, having a dedicated fast charger will be rare.
2) You are referencing a super charger, not a fast charger.
3) Super charging drastically reduces the life expectancy of your battery.
With “hours” of charging time required at a charging station, it wouldn’t take long for lines to start forming just to get to a charger if/when electric cars become more numerous. Are we going to put up charging station centers with a 1000 units to satisfy these cars along major interstate highways here in the US?
Depends on whether the big guy can get 10%.
This is already a major problem on the European motorways. I avoid all service stations with EV charging because of the fleet of EVs endlessly circling waiting for a free charger.
And, what happens in the future of Biden-mandated EVs when people try to evacuate because of a flood or hurricane? They can’t afford the luxury of sitting in line waiting for other cars to be re-charged.
California EV user’s experiences do not bode well for projected EV sales in America as the states’ EV users may be sending a caution to the wind (no pun intended) message to America that the EV usage in the state is slightly more than 5,000 miles a year.
The limited usage of the EV’s is a reflection that the EV is a second vehicle, for those that can afford them, and not the family workhorse vehicle.
Ronald, given California’s frequent brown and blackouts, which are only going to get worse, I would think depending on an EV for one’s sole transportation would be quite sketchy, esp., if you live somewhere where wildfires are a concern not to mention other natural or man made disasters.
Heap on top of what you wrote, that CA wants to be able to use EV batteries as grid storage and supply… so during a brownout or blackout, they’d be draining your EV battery.
You can imagine the scenario unfolding… a period of low wind and cloudy days, so they’re pulling your EV battery down to supply the grid. The wind kicks up, forcing PG&E to cut off power to prevent fires due to power lines hitting trees, so you can’t charge your car. PG&E isn’t fast enough, and one of those power lines touches off a wildfire. And you don’t have the charge in your car to escape.
They keep heaping stupidity upon stupidity.
Ummmm . . . I thought England, along with the European continent, had adopted using kilometers (km) instead of miles for road distances. I guess I was wrong.
Highway signage in England is in MPH. England is in a bit of a no-man’s land between metric and imperial. When I lived there, I asked a traffic engineer why the speed signs were in MPH and he told me that the public had pitched a very large fit when the labor government of the day tried to change it that almost took down the government. No one else has been brave enough or fool-hardy enough to try it since.
But if you’re market trader selling potatoes in pounds you will earn yourself a fine from the weights and measures inspector.
Not any more.
For engineering, science and construction, and many other things, we went metric years ago, but for things in common usage “MPH”, “MPG” and distance, we stayed imperial. Also we now buy gas (petrol) in litres, but beer in (UK, 20 oz) pints.
I went to Purdue, and so measure temperature in degrees Rankine….
This is one reason why Norwegians didn’t sell their petrol/diesel car when they bought heavily subsidized EVs
That, and the fact that the range of EVs drops precipitously in cold weather.
And what about traffic jams getting into/out of/through cities?! That must surely significantly lower range also.
They actually get OK mileage because they are not moving. But if you have the heat or AC on, all bets are off.
Yeah but who needs heat in Norway. Oh wait! 😀
Emissions from vehicles can begin right now, simply by lowering speed limits as was done in the US during the 1970’s OPEC imbroglio.
Jimmy — is that you?
Follow the trail of peanut shells.
Mork: “Do you like peanuts? then you’ll love Jimmy”
Yes, that would be true. And as an engineer, that would be a policy to recommend. Nevertheless, we are dealing with human beings, not chattel livestock. Each person has the God Given Right to make decisions for themselves as opposed to receiving One Size Fits None orders from a bureaucrat.
Linus Pauling, after noting that both parents had to have the sickle-cell trait in order to pass the disease to their children, advised that those positive with the trait should be tattooed on the face so upon recognition that both are positive, would not become a couple and procreate. Pauling understood diseases, but he clearly did not understand humanity.
Or is the Purpose of Man to serve capricious whims of authoritarians?
On busy roads that would just lead to massive congestion – with really low speeds (and dreadful mpg values).
Yes, an individual car on the road is different from many cars. Once gridlock sets in from too many cars trying to use the available lanes, you can forget about what the individual optimal speed is.
Just think of the congestion when EVs immobilize themselves for want of “juice” and there’s no “gas can rescue” that will quickly get them on the move again!
logical fallacy. The amount of work and thus the energy is still the same, independent of speed, for most real life cases.
An “error” often made by those with an agenda.
Wind resistance increases with the square of speed.
When you travel twice as fast, your car has to deal with 4 times the wind resistance.
No, rolling resistance increases with the square of the speed. Wind resistance increases with the cube of the speed.
Wrong on both counts, Clyde. The resistance (i.e. force) of aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed, while rolling resistance (i.e. force) increases linearly with speed. It’s the power consumption (Force times Velocity) that increases as the cube and square of drag and rolling resistance, respectively.
Basically, your power need (energy per unit time) based on wind resistance goes up with the cube of speed, but your energy per unit distance (what people most often care about) goes up with the square of speed.
You need to be clear on what the denominator is. Cube and square are both correct depending on the context.
Problem is, it doesn’t help when the vast majority of people simply ignore the speed limit! I’m old enough to remember driving on freeways in the 80’s and if you actually did 55 people would blow around you like you were standing still….
Reducing the speed limit on roads designed for 70 mph is a recipe for disaster, and that was known by the federal government when they did it in the 1970s – but they did it anyway, and doubled down on the lie with the slogan “55 Saves Lives.” It was the first time in history that the fatality rate per million passenger miles increased, and it was only on highways (most fatalities on US roads are on surface streets). A friend and former colleague of mine worked in the federal highway department, and acknowledged these facts recently. The statistical distribution of highway speeds is determined by road design, and 80% or more of drivers will drive at or slightly above the safe speed for the road. The rest will drive in a tight distribution around that speed. When you reduce the speed limit to significantly below the safe speed for the road, the distribution of driving speeds becomes very broad. Collisions then become much more frequent and energetic events, with differences between vehicle speeds in collisions widening. Maryland did a very expensive and prolonged upgrade to the I-95 north of Baltimore over the past few years, and the safe speed for the road is easily 80 mph. The speed limit, however, is 55 mph, and the accident and fatality rate reflect that. My friend, formerly of the federal highway department, said that they knew of the higher accident and fatality rate, and refused to change the speed limits because they believed it was “moral” to drive more slowly, and would keep those limits until people obeyed them. And he was an advocate of federal regulation (just not of that one).
Just one correction – the design speed for the Interstates was actually 75mph, not 70mph.
And that was a design metric from the 1950s when Interstate construction began, when your typical car:
If vehicles with those “attributes” were seen as safely capable to go 75mph, today’s infinitely safer vehicles should be perfectly safe at even higher speeds on most stretches of the Interstates.
That may be true for some cars. But, I imagine that when the Detroit engineers designed their cars they took into account the fact that the legal speed limit on open highways was 65 MPH — and people typically pushed that. Not surprisingly, when I went to considerable effort to try to determine the optimal speed for my ’65 Corvette during the ’70s Arab Oil Embargo, I concluded that it was about 68 MPH. The gas mileage curve is very steep approaching the optimum, and much flatter beyond. Lowering the speed limit below the optimum for the average car increases gas consumption. It is only by discouraging long trips at reduced speed that there were any significant savings.
If you want to go to the trouble of changing the gear ratios in the transmission and differential, and re-jetting the carburetor, you can probably lower the optimal speed AND get better gas mileage — at the cost of reduced performance, which may be undesirable if you live in the mountains.
Clyde-
Re-jetting the carburetor? You are certainly showing your age. I can’t remember a car in the U.S. with a carburetor after about the 1990 model year, maybe earlier.
Yup, my car doesn’t enter lean-burn mode until I’m on a flat stretch of roadway, and doing at least 62 MPH. So it’s more economical for me to travel at 65 MPH than 55 MPH.
I plan on reprogramming my ECU to drop that lean-burn lower speed down a bit, with water mist injection into the intake headers to moderate peak combustion temperature so I don’t burn the valves. That’ll boost fuel economy quite a bit, since water phase change expands so much more than air for a given temperature change. Gives more torque, so you can gear up and depress the throttle less.
Fortunately, I drive a stick-shift, so regearing the transmission isn’t so much of a chore as regearing an auto-tranny would be.
Oh, he’ll no!
Yes, I remember New Jersey highways at 55MPH speed limits. If you went anything under 80MPH you were in serious danger of being run over. So yeah, let’s just change the speed limits.
People who lived in low population states who traveled long distances with very little civilization in between and few cars on the roads did not appreciate Jimmy’s “solution” to the Oil Crisis any more than people who lived in large cities appreciated having designated days to fill up depending on their license plate numbers and having to wait in long lines with either their cars running getting zero mpg or having to shut off the engine and restart every five minutes. Fortunately, I lived in a state that did not come under Jimmy’s edict. Until Obama and now, Biden, Jimmy was the worst President of my lifetime, though, LBJ was and remains a strong contender for that “honor”.
I am confident Biden, having attained the honor of worst President in my lifetime mere weeks into his Presidency, will retain the throne.
What emissions? Drive a modern petrol car down Oxford St and the exhaust is cleaner than the ‘air’ going in. It burns off city pollutants. CO2 is plant food, not an emission.
In my younger days as a college student, I made several “blitz” trips between California and Florida in 3-4 days, averaging around 800 miles per day (on one trip logging over 1000 miles in one 24 hour period, but I couldn’t safely repeat that today!).
This was and is possible with ICE technology, but such would be impossible even today using battery EV technology (i.e., no hybrid EV).
One recent EV Cannonball run (New York to Los Angeles) by three guys in a Porsche Taycan took 44 hours 26 minutes.
Compared to the fossil-fuel record of 25 hours 39 minutes …
w.
“Using powerful and fast DC charging, you’ll be able to restore 310km of range in just 22-and-a-half minutes.”
I figure, starting on a full battery, you need five and half hours of charging, assuming you don’t need to resort to slower 8 hour charge time. That is a 72 mph average, so plausible, but you would be losing range going fast enough to average that and not getting to recharge all the time in 23 minutes in the real world.
Was the battery still usable after all those fast charges?
No.
James, New York to LA distance via I-40 W (predominately) is 2,780 miles. If done in 44 hours 26 minutes, that’s an average speed of 62.6 mph, less than the posted speed limits over most of this route.
So, maybe a “BB pellet” run, but not qualifying as a Cannonball run in any historical sense.
I’ve done many 1,200 to 1,300 mile trips in 2 days and a full night’s sleep with a gasoline powered car costing less than $15,000. I didn’t have worry about where to refuel either.
One time I was out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas and had been driving for hours without seeing a gas station. About 10 PM I finally came across one. I was down to about 1/2 gallon of gas. Even with ICE vehicles, there are still places where refueling can be problematic. That will be even more common if we transition to EVs.
[Incidentally, should anyone be tempted to give me advice about how to avoid running out of gas, I should advise you that in more than 60 years of driving, I have only run out of gas once. That time I was a block from a gas station.]
I’ve never run out of gas, but I’ve got some years to go before I catch up to you in that respect. ;-D
Should be harder than ever to run out of gas these days, my vehicles with modern “infotainment” systems both have a “range to empty” indicator right on the dash that recalculates according to your driving conditions as you go.
Even with the fast chargers out there, it’s too long. “The Chevy Bolt EV has a DC fast charger option, and charges at a rate of up to 55 kW, which allows the Bolt EV to recharge up to 80% in about 1 hour.” Sorry, I just don’t see how I would want to hang around that long on a road trip.
Besides all that, every high-rate commercial charging station has to have electrical service. The Siemens Sicharge D, rated for 300kW to serve several vehicles, would need about a 400 KVA feeder. So every one of these or similar units looks like a mid-sized factory to the electrical grid, with far less predictable demand. Imagine a dozen of these units at a charging center!
Yes the entire distribution system will have to be rewired. For home chargers as well if there are very many. A slow home charger still draws like a house. By design the present system is close to capacity.
David ==> You are spot on. The problem isn’t really the cars — it is the infrastructure necessary to implement. Re-wiring every neighborhood in the entire country to provide superchargers for one Ev or even Fast Chargers for multipe EVs at each home is beyond the capability of our economy — and possibly beyond the ability of the Earth to supply enough new copper or aluminum to manufacture all the wire to accomplish this.
Try doing it with “renewable” energy.
Which is the fantasy world of the climate fascists. Sheer lunacy.
Buy copper futures!
I thought about buying copper but then read that earth has plenty of copper in the ground, the shortage is because copper prices were not high enough to pay back the mining costs and make a profit. If copper continues to be in high demand, I suspect that will change and for the supply to increase. Of course, I could be wrong.
The new Infrastructure bill has billions of dollars in it for new charging stations. It looks like Joe is going to give it a shot.
I think the Powers-that-Be are overestimating the enthusiasm people are going to show for electric vehicles. What if they don’t sell very well? What will the alarmists do then? Mandate, I guess. That’s usually their solution to everything.
Tom ==> The feeble amount to be spent won’t even make a dent in the need when it comes to the residential power grid. every home to be upgrade to 300-400 amp 120 VAC, from the current 100-200.
I agreee the grid is one of the problems.
Forcing all-electric on all the population in a short period of time is what is going to cause problems.
The authorities should allow this transition to evolve slowly.
But of course, the alarmists are in a hurry because they have an inappropriate fear of CO2.
Trying to manipulate market forces is not a good idea. The market will push back and spoil their plans.
It will just be more wasted taxpayer money; it’s easy to spend, spend, spend when it’s not your money.
Yes, you are correct.
A big diesel generator hidden in trees behind every refueling station will solve the problem.
Like this –
%3Fssl%3D1&f=1&nofb=1
The only trailer your Tesla will ever need
Of course the Truckla is kind of cool
LOL. A recharge time measured in days, maybe weeks – and then ONLY in sunny weather – plus an aerodynamic drag that will cut your highway range to about 20% of what you might otherwise get.
It would have to be really BIG
I want an electric car because the are really neat to drive. Have you driven one yet? They are great as the 2nd car in the household Especially if you charge it up in hour own garage.
That’s right, these things aren’t meant to take the Great American Road Trip to Yellowstone.
I agree, I drove my friend’s new electric Mustang last week. Lots of fun. It will work well for his usage, but not mine.
Most people do not drive a car for “fun.” They need a reliable vehicle that gets them from point A to point B with whatever cargo they need to transport.
What they don’t want is an $80,000 car, with a reliability rating of #20 out of 26, that requires an hour of charging half way to their destination in winter.
Shoving a not-ready technology down everyone’s throat because a twit like Buttegieg and a proven failure like Granholm say so is typical Democrat government stupidity
Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want anything pulling 10+kW for several hours every night in my garage while my family sleeps. I just saw that Chevy Bolts are being recalled because of their tendency to burst into flames while charging. Tesla’s seem to do the same occasionally. Charging outdoors might be safer, but I live where it snows a lot.
Absolutely. How long before an occasional disastrous battery fire causes death, and EVs are banned from all car parking buildings, tunnels, and attached garages? Even the deluded “green” politicians will be forced into that.
Snow helps put out the fire, too.
Until it melts, you better shovel fast!
You can’t charge a lithium ion battery when it’s temperature falls below 32F. So charging it outdoors isn’t a year round option.
Details! 😀
In my neck of the woods, that “not year round” may apply for the better part of half the year, depending on the weather!
Weather dependent transport powered by weather dependent electricity. What could go wrong?! Hope everyone like hiking, biking and cross-country skiing!
Again, do you think it is wise to charge it in a household garage?
I don’t even leave my string trimmer battery charging overnight in my garage.
Roads into and out of Yellowstone are well populated, often by wealthy elitists who feel entitled with plenty of services to cater to their desires.
Driving north from Winnemucca heading towards Denio and then west on 140 to Oregon. Precious and common opal to the west of Denio, e.g. Royal Peacock. Sunstones in Oregon north of Lakeview.
Driving west from Salt Lake City across the salt flats is an experience itself.
Enjoying history like following the Pony Express Route out of Fairfield on rte 73 then taking the Pony Express Road just past five mile pass is quite an experience. We drove for six hours without seeing another person. Lots of Mormon crickets, but no people.
That road takes you into central Nevada where every road is a long lonely drive.
Or driving across the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona.
These are just a miniscule sampling of wonderful roads long on scenery and very short of gas stations and alleged EV chargers. All of the Western states have these long roads far from urban blight.
The range limfac with my pickup driving long distance without stopping is typically not my gas tank, but my bladder volume and my coffee thermos that keeps filling it. The gas station stops are usually welcome pee breaks.
Joel
Such a wise man that you are, more coffee equals more pee and increased dehydration.
I gave up coffee, alcohol and fizzy drinks some time ago, and drink water at 9.5ph.
Give it a go and step out of old habits.
My best regards
That covers 5 minutes of the 1 hour you need to recharge.
Urban parasites love electric cars. If they drive at all, it is rarely more than a few miles. And they do not care if that negatively impacts people who do not live as they do, because those people are obviously stupid for not herding in cities.
Actually the first Studebakers were Conestoga wagons. Of course, the y weren’t called Studebakers but that’s where the company came from. My second car was a Studebaker sport coupe, six cylinder that got around 20 miles per gallon, but at 25 cents a gallon, who cared? Our two Volvo AWD wagons get 20-24 mpg and have a range around 400 miles. The only time it takes more than 5 minutes to refuel is if there is a line at the pump and I know that the CO 2 I produce is greening the planet.
Dave – I think you are replying to the wrong post. I owned a ’60 Studebaker Silver Hawk 289 V8 and loved it. A beautiful car.
One of my brothers had a ’62 Gran Turismo Hawk, and my other brother had a ’57 Golden Hawk, supercharged. Great machines.
You were probably earning about $2.50 per hour, if you were lucky. It isn’t the actual cost that matters, but how long you had to work to buy a gallon of gas.
Living in Norway I’m used to seeing EVs everywhere and have several friends who own them and are very happy with them. However, we enjoy driving holidays, on the last day of last years we drove from Berlin back home, a distance of over 600 miles, wouldn’t have been so easy in an EV!
On holiday in Spain at the moment, when I parked at the local airport in Norway at least every other car there was an EV. Here in Spain I have seen 2 (1 Tesla and 1 Jag) in 10 days, covering long trips and several cities.
It makes it very obvious that the only reason they are extremely popular in Norway is the high level of subsidies and other benefits they enjoy, these are lacking in Spain, so nobody buys them. I guess running the air-conditioning in around 35 deg C (95 F) would also lower their range substantially too!
Yep all that fossil fuel money went into subsidies
Don’t forget the hydropower.
Lots more goes into generating electricity to charge the EV, usually via a dirty great steam engine.
Even NPP have to boil water.
Technology has fundamentally not advanced much since 1840.
600 miles is a typical day’s drive on a three or four-day trip across the US.
In a Green New Deal America (GND-A), we won’t be using private cars to visit Auntie Em who lives 250 or 300 miles away. We will be doing things similar in some ways to the way we did things a hundred years ago when we had limited access to energy.
If we decide we would like to visit Auntie Em in person and talk with her face to face, we will take a cab or a shuttle bus to the train station. We will buy a ticket and get on a train to the station nearest to where Auntie Em lives. When we get to that station, we will then take a cab or a shuttle bus to her apartment.
It’s also possible that when we get to the town where she lives, we might decide to rent an EV from the huge EV rental parking garage which is sited next next to the train station. A person’s presence inside this huge garage will be monitored in real time in case an EV catches fire and everyone must be quickly evacuated.
More likely than not, Auntie Em won’t be living in a small town or suburb somewhere up the road from where we ourselves live. She will be living in a large urban city in a quadplex or an apartment, in an environment where electricity is in short supply relative to what we have today and where energy consumption can be closely monitored and controlled.
Reaching President Biden’s announced goals of a 50% reduction in our GHG emissions by 2030, net-zero emissions in the power generation sector by 2035, and full net-zero by 2050 requires that in some ways, dear Auntie Em must become someone who is not quite human.
Rather, she must become a video image and a speaker-amplified voice which sometimes appears on our smartphone screens. If she is to be something more than that, either she moves a lot closer to where we live and work, or we take the time and trouble to go through all the hoops needed to get from our own home to hers.
Maybe, but what will that “firewatcher” actually do, apart from chasing all people out of that EV rental parking building? Since even the fire brigade folk cannot extinguish the fire, they will watch from a distance for several days while the building and its contents burn out. Rebuild and await the next fire?
A multi-level EV rental parking garage must be designed from the very beginning to be highly resistant to an electric vehicle fire. Meaning that the structure will be comparatively expensive to construct, to operate, and to maintain.
It’s possible that each parking space might have to separated from the space next to it by a firewall.
Which raises another question: will all existing parking garage structures have to be upgraded to allow EV’s to be parked there, possibly reducing their capacity by a third or more?
And then there are the car ferries plying the waters of harbors and channels. And the car ferrying transport trains. And the Chunnel and the Holland Tunnel.
If you have to put a firewall between each parking spot, you are going to drastically increase the amount of space needed for each space.
Let’s say you need 3 feet of clearance in order to have enough room to open a door far enough for the passengers to get out. In current parking, there needs to be 3 feet between each car.
Put a firewall in, and each car would now need 3 feet between the car and the firewall. This means that the distance between cars has gone from 3 feet, to 6 feet, plus the thickness of the fire wall.
And all the carbon dioxide from all the unnecessary extra concrete.
With these kinds of space requirements, it’s possible an EV-armored parking garage might have only half the parking capacity of a similar sized ICE parking garage.
Here’s another consideration. Will an EV-armored parking garage be required to have a safe zone surrounding it, making its footprint on the ground larger than an ICE garage — even if the vehicle capacity is half that of a similar ICE garage?
At any rate, the big three American auto makers have committed to making EV’s half of their total production by 2030.
It is hard to believe the Big Three could reach that target unless government-enforced anti carbon mandates of one sort or another left consumers with no other choice but to buy an EV instead of a conventional ICE vehicle.
If that happens, I’ll make a prediction that’s probably far more realistic that the “climate science” based temperature predictions – they’ll be lots of lots full of unsold EVs in the future.
You’ll also need to parking spaces to be waterproofed, with automatic fire-sensing watertight doors and a water tank above each space capable of dumping enough water into the sealed parking space to completely submergg a burning EV, since that will be the only way to put an EV fire out.
Oh – and of course all EV drivers should be issued a life jacket so they won’t drown if they survive the fire.
Now, let’s see if I got that right. She will be living in an environment where electricity is in short supply, and you will be renting an EV locally?
Yes, that is what a Green New Deal America will look like, among a myriad of other lifestyle changes Americans must get used to.
A variety of conflicting policy choices will be presented to those who decide what our future is to look like.
For example, if you are visiting Auntie Em in another city and choose to rent an EV locally rather than taking a cab or a bus to her apartment, then you will pay through the nose for the priviledge.
But, if I want to go to South Dakota to collect minerals in abandoned pegmatite quarries, I need several pounds of collecting tools, cardboard boxes and packing material, clothes for several days and changing weather, and perhaps specialized tools like a hand-truck and battery-powered rotary hammer drill. Once I’m there, I’m going to need a vehicle that will navigate narrow, unpaved, steep roads. One size does not fit all.
You will have several options living in a Green New Deal America:
— Give up your hobby of traveling to South Dakota to collect minerals in abandoned pegmatite quarries and choose another hobby which doesn’t consume nearly as much energy.
— Travel to South Dakota by train or commercial bus and rent a suitably outfitted vehicle, and all the other equipment you will need, from a local outfitter of some sort, maybe SoDak Mineralogy Adventures LLC or some such local business. You will being paying a lot of money for the privilege. But that’s the way the micaceous cookies crumble.
— If your mineralogy hobby is your passion, and maybe your avocation, then you might think about starting up your own business as an outfitter for mineralogy expeditions — SoDak Mineralogy Adventures LLC for example.
It has been my experience that such outfitters are catering to city slickers that don’t have a clue about what to do and how. The outfitters are two pages ahead of them in the textbook.
The outfitters could learn from me. However, I’m retired. I’m not looking for another job.
Exactly what Massachusetts’s Sustainability Chief to the Governor said in February. David Ismay, Gov. Charlie Baker’s under secretary for climate change, told Vermont climate advocates that it’s time to go after homeowners and motorists to help reduce emissions.
And this guy was in a GOP governors office … Gov Baker and his staff are just RINOs.
Reaching President Biden’s announced goals of a 50% reduction in our GHG emissions by 2030, net-zero emissions in the power generation sector by 2035, and full net-zero by 2050 requires that we all go back to the lifestyle world of 1920, or maybe even some earlier time in America’s energy consumption history.
If David Ismay had to do it all over again, would he still say the words that he did? Or would he simply have told his climate activist listeners to just get on with doing whatever it was they were doing; and, as far as his own rhetoric went, just let it go at that?
What will this goal accomplish?
For a committed climate activist, reaching President Biden’s announced goals of a 50% reduction in our GHG emissions by 2030, net-zero emissions in the power generation sector by 2035, and full net-zero by 2050 is its own reward.
Am I a climate activist myself?
The answer is no. I’m a lukewarmer who thinks that if climate activists are serious about pursuing their very ambitious GHG reduction targets, then they should be completely honest and transparent about what it will take to get there.
Who is this “we” you write about?
“We” is everyone living in America in the year 2035 who is a member of the middle class, or some lower class, and who wants to visit another location some distance away from home, for whatever reason. Roughly 90% of the US adult population would be a close enough estimate.
I have a little generator on a little trailer and I tow that behind my EV. That way I’m fully charged when I arrive!
Every EV driver needs to keep their tow truck recovery service on cell phone speed dial.
Last weekend I saw a Tesla sitting on the side of the freeway and (apparently) someone had stopped to try and help. Not sure what was going on, but if the car was out of juice, I don’t think there would have been anything AAA would have been able to do, other than summon a tow truck. The traffic was backed up and moving slowly at the time, and the weather was hot. Also possible the driver decided to just park it for a while and get out to avoid having the AC draw the battery down to low. But either way, if you run out of juice, there’s no way AAA (or any other roadside assistance) can bring you a charge….
If I was to run out in my ICE vehicle they could bring me a couple of gallons and I’d be on my way to the next gas station.
EVs will remain niche vehicles until range and charge times meet user demands. Great while within their niche, not so much outside it.
The Tesla supercharger operating at 72KW can supposedly do an RPH of 200. What Tesla doesn’t tell you is that it also dramatically permanently reduces battery capacity and so shortens battery life. I researched this and found a real Model S datapoint: a Model S owner who drove about 10k miles in 6 months, about 8k of that with supercharging even tho Tesla says not a problem “but don’t do it too often”. At the end of the six months his battery capacity was permanently diminished by 12%. Which is why the lowish RPH is inescapable for any reasonable EV battery life.
Guess is buried somewhere in the Tesla battery warranty is a ‘void if more than X supercharges’. And I suspect it is very easy for the car to keep count.
The charging is controlled by electronics. I see no issues with incrementing a counter every time the charging current exceeds X Amps.
The whole charge-discharge cycle by cell is monitored by software and microprocessors. Individual cell voltage and current draw, multiple temperature sensors in the battery pack are all continuously montiroed and logged and filed for every charging and discharging session. This is technician-level data stuff that requires analysis software to download and diagnose battery cell failures and overheating, as well as all the charging loads.
Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Boris’ Charger Fairy will look after it and what makes. you thiink that an unworthy prole like you would have wheekls in Bris;’ Brave New World
Many of us live in fly-over country. A 300-500 mile day trip is not all that unusual. EV’s are not practical.
If the liberals get their way, all of us will be forced to live in cities.
Not all 200 miles are created equal. Two hundred miles in stop-n-go traffic are far more taxing than the same distance on a high speed expressway. Also, are passengers always incapable of sharing the driving load?
I would like to read opinions on driving endurance by any lurking OTR lorry drivers.
The longest I ever drove in one stint was 18 hours. By the time I got home, I was using my left foot for the accelerator pedal!
More typically, now that I’m older, is 12 hours the first day when fresh, and 10 hours per day each subsequent day. So, with gas and food stops, about 600 miles per day.
I spent a lot of my working life as a service engineer .Part of my work was to deliver technical parts to wherever they were needed as quick as possible .
I have driven over 4 million miles , and done over a 1000 miles in a day many hundreds of times when I was not on a tacho
Endurance driving is something that becomes a lot easier with practice .[ You would not run a Marathon without a lot of practice building up to it ]
So there is no way an EV could do that sort of work , which was keeping businesses working , and sometimes keeping the essential infrastructure of the country going .
In southern Michigan, thousands of people go “Up North” every weekend. Anybody stopping in 200 miles for an hour of rest would be laughed out of the state.
In the brave, new GND world, trips will be planned around windy, sunny days. No travel on cloudy, windless days when the grid goes dark.
Just like it is for planning a boating trip, when the weather is rarely as god as it was when you first planned the trip. Many boat owners rarely invite friends with several days prior notice! Weather unpredictability is not the friend of pre-planning!
The most important commodity in the world is time.We all only have so much of it.
So here’s another way to frame up the issues:
For easy math, let’s say that current average gas price is $US3/gal (substitute in the price that applies for your situation).
Say you have a 20 gallon tank that gets your 400 mile range.
To fill this tank, it will be $US60.
If you have an EV that can go 400 mi & takes 10 hrs to charge these bateries, this is the equivalent of $US6/hour for your time to charge. So, ask yourself, is your time worth more than $US6/hr ?
If your answer is yes, your should continue to drive an ICE for any longer trips. The EV maybe Ok for around town when you charge it overnight when you are sleeping, but it will make little sense for longer trips until charging time comes way down.
Jeff – at the end of Biden’s presidency, the full tank will be $500.
“It will make little sense for longer trips
untilunless charging time comes way down.”You forget the cost of lodging and meals when you add a day or two to your trip. I know they usually cost me far more than a tank of gasoline.
People complained about oil dependence from Opec. Then for a short time the US became oil independent, fuel prices went down, the country prospered. Now under this administration US back to getting more dependent on foreign oil. Fuel prices up, commodity prices increasing.
If switching over to electric then will be dependent on China for rare earth metals. So from Opec to China dependency as mining and oil production not allowed in western society.
Not good for western security.
“Not good for western security.”
That’s the Democrats for you.
Remind me again Tom who the president was who said in a summit in Helsinki he thought Putin was telling the truth contrary to the advice of his secret service?
That’s leftwing propaganda, Simon. I can’t help it if you believe it.
The practical solution, at least for larger vehicles, is a hybrid. We own a MY 2007 Ford hybrid Escape with AWD and class 1 tow hitch. Modeled on the Prius architecture. It does 32 city and 28 hwy at 70mph with AC on. Range is about 380 miles. Traction Battery still going strong after 14 years, because floats between about 45% to 55% of full charge, never less, never more—unlike EVs. $3000 premium over the equivalent V6 (at an average about 20mpg) was $3k, paid off by hybrid tax credit day one. We have saved over $4k since, because not only does the hybrid use 1/3 less gallons, it uses regular while the directly comparable V6 was premium gas. In our neck of the woods, the price difference is at least $1/gallon.
To save the planet, we have to abandon all luxuries to the elected and endlessly re-elected royalty.
We just got a new Ford hybrid, Just wow, perfectly smooth. The wizbang computer crap in the thing is over the top though. 17 buttons on the steering wheel but the one to cycle the wipers isn’t there, and a touch screen for all sorts of stuff. They put this crap in the car just because they can, not because anyone wants it. Oh! great gas mileage.
I know what you mean. 🙂
I’ve got:
1) Horn button (on the steering wheel)
2) Window up / down controls (on the door panel)
3) Mirror adjustment control (on the door panel)
4) Blinkers / headlight high & low beam (on the steering column stalk)
5) Windshield wiper/washer control (on the steering column stalk)
6) Fan speed control knob (on the dashboard)
7) Temperature knob (on the dashboard)
8) Rear window defrost button (on the dashboard)
9) Stick-shift
10) Clutch pedal
11) Brake pedal
12) Gas pedal
That’s it. No whiz-bang touch-screen computer crap, no heads-up display, no lane change warning, no cruise control, not even a radio. I intentionally purchased a vehicle without all the stuff that typically breaks and is expensive to get fixed.
When I drive, I focus on driving. Not on fiddling with buttons and knobs and touch screens.
Oh… and no A/C… if I want to cool down, I can roll down the windows. Yeah, I’m old school. I just wish cars nowadays had those wind-wing windows like the old-style cars had… guess that’s not ‘aerodynamic’, though. They’d rather consume 10 times more energy running an A/C compressor than pushing air through a window slanted into the wind. LOL
“What 1950’s monstrosity did you buy?”, you may be asking… no, it’s a modern Hyundai… you can order them without all the extra stuff that breaks. If I could have, I would have done away with the mirror controls and electric windows, too, but that wasn’t an option.
Does that allow sufficient virtue-signaling for a dedicated Greenie?
Nope. But I’m not a Greenie. Just a Harvard MBA that can run the numbers.
The big uncertainty back in 2007 was actual battery life. Figured we could afford the then experiment. Turns out we won financially, bigly. Have had dealer offers to sell our Escape multiple times. No dice.
If EV’s do become more popular, they will become the authors of their own demise:
The more EV’s becomes significant in market share, the more they will become uneconomical, not to mention that they will raise the cost of electricity for everyone (Cue the screaming from those on fixed incomes and their advocates).
On the plus side, truckers in the US won’t need to carry a doctored second set of logs.
Those days of having more than one log book are pretty much over. Over 90% of the drivers out there are now on E-logs.
All I can say is that the 500-mile road trip is in the Constitootion. It is the eternal right of every ‘Murican. You could look it up.
Now, in 1969 when I was 22, I used to drive my ’65 Mustang fastback from Seattle to LA. Nonstop. 1200 miles. And back, in a weekend. But we were men back then. Real Men.
There is a school of thought that EV’s will not overcome all the obvious obstacles, and that is the desired outcome … a population without autonomy.
“ they are totally useless for long trips”
Willy, you have no idea.
EVs are excellent for long trips!
When your battery is empty, just catch the next lorry and hook it up!
The recuperation fills your battery in 100 miles or so
nobody believes?
this guy drove his Tesla from Moscow to Venice and back that way:
(in Russian)
“The comment was criticized for not accounting for the fact that a 400-mile range is closer to 250-300 miles in colder climates and depending on the conditions.”
Heard second hand accounts of Tesla 3 getting about 180 miles per charge during a consistent stretch of single-digit highs. If you are in the lake-effect areas of Western Michigan it’s common to need to run your defroster at close to full blast every time there’s a strong lake-effect setup. Have to believe that Great Britain encounters similar humidity issues.
Millions of people in Canada and the US live in climates where -20 C for months is common, and -40 (C or F, take your pick) for days or even weeks is an annual occurrence. You’ll need to run that defroster and heater at full blast AND take into account reduced capacity of the battery due to the cold.
Before you can recharge that battery, you first have to warm it up to 32F (0C). That will take both time and energy.
Spoken like a true entitled urbanite; no-one should do things that Musk doesn’t like.
400 miles is roughly 6-7 hours driving on interstates 7.5 hours driving at 55 on scenic routes.
I don’t hang around restrooms for 6 minutes, let alone ten hours.
After 7 hours driving, there are another 3 to 6 hours driving before I start thinking about stopping for the night.
Which brings us to my preference for stopping overnight in tent camping campsites. Long trips interspersed with off-road trips with gear and tools that Musk also disbelieves.
Musk must have never packed a lunch and eaten in the car. If you have more than one driver, a 400 mile trip is just getting started. My wife and I have gone on driving trips to destinations 800 to 900 miles away. Drive out on Friday, return on Sunday or Monday.
Much as I love internal combustion, and my daily driver options bounce back and forth between a couple Fau-Acht German things and a Duramax Silverado, we (and particularly my wife) routinely do 650-mile trips in her Tesla Model 3.
In areas where Tesla’s troweled Supercharger sites across the landscape, you leave the house fully charged, do a couple 30 minute charges enroute, and you’re at your destination with about 30 miles left. The Tesla mapping software plans your charge stops based on Supercharger availability and minimum total charging time, not maximizing miles between charges.
At home it’s a 220V welding outlet and 32A charge rate, in daily commute/kiddie carpool use it gets charged at home every 2-3 days.
In a bit over 19 months and 30K miles of ownership it’s never been back to Tesla for anything. We bought it because it’s cute and it’s fun (3.2 seconds 0-60, and quicker than any M or AMG until you’re knocking on triple digits), not because of any enviro nonsense, but it’s a blast to drive and it’s been painless to own.
Might be possible if you have Superchargers. But in most of the country, those simply don’t exist.
w.
This is true, you don’t find a Supercharger site in Ely, NV yet.
Of course there’s no gas stations between the Utah border and Ely, either. ‘Next services 193 miles’.
If cost is no object, then destroying those very expensive batteries by super charging them isn’t a problem.
Agreed, if you’re supercharging at full rate to 80%+ capacity routinely you’re not gonna be happy with your battery life.
Says everything really. Quote We bought it because it’s cute and it’s fun (3.2 seconds 0-60, and quicker than any M or AMG until you’re knocking on triple digits), not because of any enviro nonsense, but it’s a blast to drive and it’s been painless to own.
And because they have three other (fossil fuel powered) vehicles they can actually rely on.
As an “only car,” it wouldn’t look so tempting, no matter how “cute” or “fun.”
As Leo pointed, lets play the game properly.
The chargers Willis is talking about (7kW) are what you’d have fitted at your home.
You can get more powerful ones but it all gets a bit crazy.
At home there is No Problemo,
I read somewhere on the BBC very recently, that The Average UK Adult (average ffs) spends 6 (six) hours per day Just Watching TV.
Holy Cow People, Get A Life
While out and about, you’d obviously want a faster charger and they are to be found.
But then, you run into problems with the battery cells themselves.
I’m a bit familiar, learning gently, with the classic 18650 cell
They are rated at 3,7 volts and typically about 2,300 mAh
Cursory searching will tell you that it is safe to charge Lithiums at 1C
IOW, you can pump 2.3 Amps into an 18650 to charge it and that will obviously means it takes an hour to charge.
It don’t matter if your Tesla battery contains 7,000 such cells, apart from that you’d need to find one and half million amps – IF they were all in parallel which they ain’t.
Each cell inside the battery pack has to ‘follow the rules’
All is takes is just one to go AWOL and you have a 3-day fire on your hands, backyard, bus station, motorway……
The Lithiums can be charged at 2C, meaning it would only take 30 mins to charge your battery BUT, that is THE absolute limit and it destroys the life cycle capacity of your battery.
But even charging at 1C you have to be very carefull and is why almost every Lithium battery pack me and you will ever see, use, come across will have a temperature sensor attached to it.
They always have 3 wires, even the little diddy one in your phone, Sat Nav, media player, cordless tools etc etc
Peta of Newark wrote:
“Each cell inside the battery pack has to ‘follow the rules’
All is takes is just one to go AWOL and you have a 3-day fire on your hands, backyard, bus station, motorway……”
And therein lies the problem… the more cells you’ve got in a battery pack, the higher the probability that one or more of them is going to misbehave over any given time span, taking some unknown number of other cells with them as they melt down in a cascading failure.
A similar analogy:
If you’ve got one exhaust fan in your facility, and that fan motor dies once every 3 years on average, then you know that once every 3 years, you’re going to be replacing a fan motor.
If you’ve got 300 such fans, you’re going to be replacing ~100 motors every year.
The MTBF for each motor is 3 years, but as you increase the number of fan motors, you have a higher incidence of failures overall.
Same with batteries… except if one battery goes, it tends to take the rest with it. The manufacturing process isn’t perfect, so the more batteries you’ve got in a pack, the more likely you got at least one bum cell that’s going to pop off and spoil the whole batch.
I met a guy a while back who drove a Chevy Bolt from Topanga Cyn Calif to Albuquerque a distance of approx 750 miles. He said it took him 4 days, stopping to charge with 110. I used to live in Topanga (Santa Monica Mtns not far from the beach) and traveled to Albuq to see my mother. It took 11-13 hrs, long day but very doable.
In the Coachella Valley of Ca (La Quinta) i knew a guy at the gym who swore by his Tesla. One time he said he was going to his lawyers daughters wedding in Santa Barbara; he was going to meet with his lawyer and travel with him. Why don’t you go in your Tesla? Of course it didn’t have the range to make it in reasonable time.
My son-in-law’s friend had to hitch a ride to a golf outing because his wonderful Tesla couldn’t make it all the way on one charge. It was less than 300 miles.
“stopping to charge with 110”.
No EV will ever charge at a reasonable rate from a 15-20A 110V source. We plugged our Model 3 into 110V once just to see what time the car would calculate for a charge. To go from 50% to 80% would have been 18 hours. No thank you.
We plug our Model 3 into a 220V 40A wall outlet, we don’t have or need the Tesla wall charger unless we decide to put one outside. The top rate on the portable charger is 32A. That’ll get the car from 20% to 80% (our normal ‘cap’) in 5-6 hours.
A Supercharger would do that in an hour or so but, as noted elsewhere, regular direct-DC high-rate Supercharging will do bad things to battery life. That said, our Model 3 goes SF-San Diego four or five times a year (650 miles) on two 30 minute Supercharger stops each way. My wife doesn’t particularly like to charge (nor fill up with gas) after dark but then given that she’s usually as close to triple digits on I-5 as she can get, that’s rarely a problem…
I have a 2017 Fiat Tipo it could be my last vehicle the way things are going.
It isn’t just the enormous expense of an EV or the charging time fiasco, there’s the absurd low traffic neighbourhood schemes which effectively close roads – it hasn’t impressed ambulance and fire crews.
Then there are the insane cycle lanes, again blocking many turnings and making it impossible for an ambulance or a fire engine to get through traffic.
The greens really know how to screw things up
The electric car is a 150 year old failed solution still desperately looking for a problem.
It is such an impossible concept that it will never catch on except in some niches.
What would you do if your gasoline car leaked half a gallon of fuel every night? Yes you would take it to get repaired.
EV’s, through self discharge, leak the equivalent in electric energy. It boggles the mind why people would accept such nonsense.
One electric vehicle did work
The milk float
But milk is now cheaper in supermarkets so they went extinct
What about the root beer float?
https://news.yahoo.com/one-mans-road-trip-across-152619231.html
The remarks by the UK climate spokesperson sound canned and automated, like they could be handled by a drone or online robot. It’s too bad they’re wrong on all counts from science to China scale ignorance. Since they are well past the times of checking their statements, they might as well automate the ignorance and let the gullible British public set up their own automated listening and canned responses. Carbon tax payments could also be automated deductions from bank accounts in exchange for turning down the volume of bad science and 24/7 media ad buys.
Are the Brits ready for car battery fires and structure fires at night? I guess it depends on the cladding they put on the buildings.
As if
To paraphrase Audi,
Katastrophe durch Ideologie
Perhaps it is just me, but why are there not solar cells covering every square inch of an EV?
Cost
Weight
Aerodynamics
Very little potential energy generation.
Do the math.
Even if you were driving in full sunlight all the time, I doubt those solar cells would be able to collect enough energy to compensate for their weight and the additional aerodynamic drag.
If the sun is over head, then only the cells on the hood, trunk and on top of the passenger compartment will be generating any power.
If the sun is in on either side, only that side will be generating power, the cells on the top will not be generating much power because of the angle at which the sun is hitting them.
If the sun is ahead or behind the car, there’s very little surface area on which to mount solar cells.
Remember solar cells generate the most power when sunlight is striking them perpendicular to their surface. As the angle of incidence decreases, the amount of power drops, fairly quickly.
Driving at night, dusk or dawn, and during periods of heavy clouds, the amount of energy the cells provide will be little to none.
On the other hand the extra weight and aerodynamic drag caused by the cells will be felt whenever the car is in use.
Ok, so you take the fam on a vacation to Yellowstone. ASSUMING there is a charging station every 200 miles (BIG assumption), once you get there, that’s your nightly stop. Hmm. I’ll bet the motels will charge a MINT because what are you going to do? Drive to the next town? PFFT! Restaurants too….hey, $20 burgers for the kids! Basically, any business that caters to travelers will have you by the ba**s if there’s a charging station nearby. Guess I need to start looking at real estate……
Stick with me here:
Because I know folks with the same last name, I recently read that C. W. McCall (known for the “Convoy” song) was a name used by the real Bill Fries. I like road/traveling songs and Bill Fries also did “Wolf Creek Pass.”
So late last night I listened to that and watched a couple of videos thanks to cameras in folks’ vehicles as they traversed Wolf Creek Pass.
I think I’d like to be in a big, well provisioned, vehicle if I were to make that run. Bucket list, maybe.
Willis, on my longer trips I find a gas & P stop to take about 7 minutes, not 5. There must be faster pumps in CA and the restrooms must be closer.
Oh and don’t forget that IONITI in Europe charges 0.69 euros per KWh so twice or three times as expensive as my modest French diesel at 52 miles per English gallon
The 7 KW charger is for overnight charging. The chargers you use on the road are superchargers which gives 150 to 250 KW.
i have used electric cars in my daily commute since 2014. Since the range in newer models have increased, we now also use it on long road trips.
The range on my model, the smallest and cheapest Tesla, is 614 km. Like most people I seldom drive more than 300 km from home. Home charging covers the need for all shorter trips. On longer trips we often use destination charging. That is hotels/ motels which let you charge overnight.
Superchargers are for the rare exceptions. A recharge on a supercharger takes about 30 minutes. My experience is that most people do not use more than about 2 hours per year on superchargers, and that is time they need for rest and streching their legs anyway.
Like most people who have tried electric I will never go back to petrol. Electric vehicles are far superior in almost every aspect.
/Jan
How many hours would a charging time eat from your vacation trip to Italy?
If that was you main concern, wouldn’t you fly and rent?
Among other things, cost.
Good question. I have driven to Italy twice but that was before I went electric.
The distance from Oslo to Rome is 2500 km, but I recommend to start wirh the luxurious car ferry to Kiel. The distance from Kiel to Rome is 1777 km.
For that you need four stops, or approximately 2 – 3 hours combined if you only use superchargers. If you only use destination chargers on hotels and motels you wont spend any extra time at all.
However, if you really want to drive on vacation to Italy I would recommend to have at least a three week plan. Use a week each way between Kiel and Rome to see some of the sights along the route and use destination charging each night.
“Electric vehicles are far superior in almost every aspect.” except they are nuclear, coal, gas or oil powered.
Thanks pigs in space. That comment usually comes from those who see no problems with coal fired power plants. Coal is only a problem if they power electric vehicles it seems.
My assessment is that we need to de-carbonize the power production. The highest priority is it to get rid of coal. That will both reduce CO2 emissions and particulate pollution by a lot, and it will eliminate most of the mercury pollution from primary sources.
The cheap Tesla in the US has a maximum range of about 450 km (278 mil). It’s about 250 miles from my house to my favorite vacation spot that we visit 2 to 3 times a year. There is one supercharger 161 miles from my destination. My wife and I used to drive 470 miles every three weeks to visit my daughter out of state. All this driving is/was done winter and summer with a range of -20F to +100F. I think I’ll stick with my ICE vehicles.
I don’t understand why electric vehicles are not built with kinetic chargers?
Also, does overuse overheat the batteries, leading to meltdowns and/or fires?
They do.
All electric cars convert braking energy to electricity, and that is a form of kinetic charger.
We could also use the energy in shock absorbers, but I guess that the energy there is too small to make any difference.
I have an answer to range anxiety for the U.S. drivers. If we divide up the U.S. into 500 smaller countries all the vehicle trips will be shorter. Presto!
Let me know what else I can help with Willis.
So simple!
Willis,
You base your figures on 7 kW charging. That is about the slowest rate available except for a simple mains plug (about 3 kW in the UK). It is normal for a domestic charger where the car can be charged overnight so the slow rate is a non-issue.
Public chargers are much faster. Over 100 kW is common. Iirc someTesla units go up to 250 kW. There are chargers coming into use which can charge at 350 kW – although it has to be said that not many cars can take that rate for now.
You might care to take a look at the various threads about all aspects of the EV experience on here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&f=247
There’s quite a lot of chat about hydrogen cars as well.
Not true in the slighest. I’m using figures for Level II commercial chargers.
Yes, Tesla does make “Superchargers”, but they are few and far between. And even those will require an hour and a half to two hours per 200 miles of range depending on your EV … still FAR too slow to be practical. Look at the backup at your typical gas station where it takes 5 minutes per fillup.
Now multiply that by 20 or so for EVs, and you’ll spend far more time waiting for a charge than actually charging …
Here’s an article about a half-mile long line of Teslas waiting for a Supercharger … so please, let’s use real numbers and not theoretical best-case scenarios.
w.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger
Supercharger stalls have a connector to supply electrical power at maximums of 72 kW, 150 kW or 250 kW.[4]
You described the low end of the chargers, not superchargers. The largest of the Tesla Model S batteries is 100kWh and so the 72kW charger can fully charge it in your hour and a half to 2 hours. That’s more than 200 miles range.
The high end superchargers will charge it in the time it takes you to go to the toilet and have a coffee and a stretch which is what every responsible driver ought to do every few hundred miles at least.
Like it or not Teslas (and electric vehicles in general) are becoming ever more popular and superchargers will become more common.
Those high end superchargers if used much will degrade the battery life much faster and increase chance of a superfire.
do you have proof of your statement?
Sorry but you are overlooking DC fast charging which is a different ball game and by far the best option for charging on the road. It’s far from theoretical being in general use by the charging networks. AC/Level 2 is only really suitable for home charging overnight or a brief top-up while shopping, for example.
I’m no EV fan but I do think they have a place as another fuel option which is particularly well-suited to local use and in-town driving because of the reduction in street-level pollution and noise.
Making EVs compulsory for all is just more green madness-on-stilts.
DC fast chargers are on the order of 100 – 200 miles per hour. Still an hour and a quarter to two and a half hours for 250 miles. And that is ONLY if you are the one person wanting a charge … the lines for the Tesla Superchargers are legendary.
w.
You keep saying this and it’s wrong. A 250kW charger charging a big battery that is 100kWh is well less than an hour and that’s more than 200 miles.
Tim, you’ve got to learn to distinguish between theory and the real world. Plus, 250 kW Superchargers are rara avis … and they don’t work with 90% of the electric cars on the road.
w.
250kW chargers aren’t theory. Neither is the demand for EVs.
Supply and demand is driving the charging network and the demand is increasing enormously. Add to that the government subsidies to improve it and your argument disappears.
You can only “fast charge” so much, it degrades the batteries. This is being overlooked by those that keep bringing up “shortest possible” charge times, and also ignores the wait time for a couple of EVs in front of you at the “supercharger” means about 45 minutes wasted before your “fast charging” even begins.
Maybe some of the EV proponents should study queuing theory.
One has to run the numbers to understand the enormity of the situation if everyone is driving a EV.
I just think of the thousands of cars stopping every hour for food and fuel at any of the roadside rest stops on the major highways. Now imagine the cars were are all electric each one needing to charge for at least one hour. I wonder how long the lineup would be or how many 40 Kw charging stations they would need to process that many cars and trucks in one hour. Keeping in mind I can fuel up my 29 year old truck in less than five minutes for a more than 500 mile range. Even 500 chargers would not be sufficient. With 500 chargers and a 20% availability of the wind generators the 500 would require at least 67 wind generators for each rest stop on every highway. The numbers are staggering.
MB:
Yep. Here in Phoenix, AZ area during the 2019 Thanksgiving weekend there was a 2 plus hour
wait just to get hooked up to a public Tesla charger . The local news had pictures of the queue for all the out of town crowd [ presumably trying to drive back to California ].
Nobody will need go to Disney World or Disney Land again once they’re driving EVs – they’ll have already gotten their fill (pardon the pun) of the “waiting in line for hours” experience.
“But what they keep ignoring is that they are totally useless for long trips.” – article
OK, that ties it for me. Not going to fly anywhere, EVER, and the trains don’t run to my sister’s home town so that lets that out. If there were still reliable passenger service by train, I’d happily take the train to visit her a couple times a year, but nope: passenger trains have been reduced to commuter rail from/to the suburbs and only certain “major” cities. And I really did like riding the rails, especially if I could just sit in the dining car and watch the cornfields go by.
Sorry, don’t mane to wax nostalgic for Them There Olden Times, but they really did have their benefits.
You have a problem with the flying cattle cars?
“<i>And I really did like riding the rails, especially if I could just sit in the dining car and watch the cornfields go by.</i>
Years ago I rode the Santa Fe from Chicago to the Bay area. About 8 years later “City of New Orleans”, written by Steve Goodman, chronicled the demise of this fine way to travel.
If you rode the rails, you might enjoy my piece entitled “Freighted With Memories” … my favorite way to travel.
w.
Had a read of that old post, Willis. That flat car you called “Gertie” was a “bulkhead flat car;” at some point, the railroads slapped a 45mph speed limit on any train with an empty bulkhead flat car on it, due to precisely the “handling” behavior you described. The violent nature of their empty handling at higher speeds caused trains to derail (reason for the subsequently applied speed limit), so you were fortunate to have survived your “bucking bronco” ride on “Gertie” in more ways than one.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/16/freighted-with-memories/#comment-983521
As for Claude Harvey’s comment (linked), no those cars didn’t need mismatched wheels, they all handled horribly when empty, because of the heavy steel bulkhead at each end and the light deck in between them. It was a handling characteristic of those cars generally, and they were indeed downright dangerous when empty.
Sorry for the OT stuff, but I couldn’t add comments to the old post.
Thanks, AGW. Considering the things I’ve done, I consider myself the luckiest man on the planet to still be on this side of the grass … I can testify that I can’t think of a time I was more scared.
w.
Dunno… I didn’t invent “range per hour”, which is good, but just reused “miles per hour”.
7 kW electrical × [3 to 4 mi/kWh] = 20 to 30 miles per hour.
A 75 W charger, proportionately more … 200 to 300 miles per hour.
A 5 gallon-per-minute kind-of-on-the-slow-end gas pump ..
… 5 gpm × [15 to 40 mpg] × 60 min/hr
= 4,500 to 12,000 miles per hour.
Range per hour.
Whatever.
And that kind of puts the whole thing into perspective, doesn’t it? pumping ‘benzine’ (very old fashioned term or petrol or gasoline) is roughly 30× faster than a 75 kW super-charging station, and likewise, roughly 300× faster than the 7 kW at-home charger.
GoatGuy
I don’t even like having to stop and recharge my vibrator, much less my car.
Spokane Washington to Grand Forks North Dakota, northern route. 1,113 miles.
Zero Tesla superchargers.
The US is a big place.
w.
I checked the Southern route on Google maps and “added superchargers”. They’re all the way along that route. A dozen of them. In fact there were more Superchargers showing than gas stations.
So what you’re really saying is that there isn’t complete coverage yet for all possible routes one may take but market forces will add them as they’re needed and become profitable.
TimTheToolMan
Nope. If that were the case, we taxpayers wouldn’t be paying for the 75,000 EV chargers in the latest so-called “infrastructure” bill, because they’d be added by “market forces”.
Why is it that every time you green geniuses come up with a new plan to save us from some invisible danger, it requires that you stick your grubby hands into my wallet and take my money to pay for it?
That scam is gettin’ old …
w.
Your government has determined that it is necessary to move away from fossil fuels. We both agree that doing it because of climate change is a bad reason.
However you made an analysis of the time and difficulty to switch from fossil fuels to alternative energy and showed it was damned near impossible in about 30 years.
Unfortunately you cant see from your own analysis how hard it will be to do it over the next 100 years where we both agree the earth will be struggling with finding and producing fossil fuels to keep up with the demand.
And what of the poor when there is actual scarcity of supply?
I do not agree with that claim in the slightest. I showed that there is 53 years of proven reserves of oil left. However:
No need to wait 100 years for that. You can see that happening today, where the stupidity of our government in following the sick “green” agenda has driven gas prices through the roof.
w.
“I do not agree with that claim in the slightest.”
You did when we discussed it before. And 53 years of oil (if that’s true) isn’t 100 years. It’s a very long way from 100 years. And doesn’t allow for growth either.
“No need to wait 100 years for that. You can see that happening today”
There is a big difference between artificial higher prices and actual supply shortages.
TimTheToolMan August 8, 2021 2:06 pm
Tim, this is exactly why I ask people to QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS.
We were talking about the effect of higher fuel prices on the poor, not the cause of the higher prices. But nice try.
w.
“Tim, this is exactly why I ask people to QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS.”
Here are your exact words
from this thread
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/
When there is no supply constraint, governments can (and do) subsidise the poor and the poor can (and do) buy energy with the subsidies. That’s not an option when there simply isn’t enough energy.
Thanks, Tim, but me saying
is NOT the same as
I said NOTHING about how we’d be “struggling with finding and producing fossil fuels to keep up with demand”.
Instead, I said “the market will take care of it.” Not one word about struggling to keep up with demand.
I knew before I responded to you that I’d likely regret it, and sure enough, here you are misrepresenting what I said.
I’m gonna pass on further interaction with you. As I knew and sadly ignored before starting, debate with you falls under the First Rule Of Pig Wrestling:
Pass,
w.
Total cognitive dissonance there.
Actually we don’t both agree that we will be struggling to find fossil fuels in 100 years. 300 to 400 years is much more likely.
Even if it is 100 years, there is no need to force feed your preferred solution on the masses at this time. Wait 60 or 70 years, and then use whatever technology has been developed in the mean time to solve the problem.
As to the poor, your solution is to make driving expensive now, so we wont have to worry about it becoming expensive later. How generous of you.
What MarkW said …
w.
Its not my “solution” but I think you missed the point. When the market drives change its because demand exceeds supply.
Under those conditions, its not that energy is expensive, its actually constrained.
Lots of speculation there. “Moving from fossil fuels” is an idiotic notion at this point, since (1) there IS NO “alternative” in terms of transport (no, “electric cars” are not and will never be an “alternative” until you have electricity supplied to the vehicles by the roads or paths they operate on, since there is not enough in terms of raw materials for “batteries” to replace the ICE vehicles already in existence much less any future increase in numbers and the replacements of “battery packs” required of all those vehicles over time); (2) fossil fuels aren’t the cause of any problem at this point and supplies are plentiful, therefore the “need” to “move away” from them is nonexistent and should not be done by government edict; (3) the only “alternative” for electric generation, once fossil fuels are no longer available (which will probably not be for 10+ generations, given the known reserves of coal alone being sufficient for about 1,000 years) is nuclear, which poses some issues for non-nuclear powers and weapons proliferation, but is otherwise workable if the same idiots trying to cram worse-than-useless wind and solar down our throats will stop resisting its expansion.
You might as well suggest we let them starve today because one day there might not be enough food. Isn’t it more intelligent to use the fossil fuels until there is an actual, as opposed to an imaginary, “scarcity?”
Isn’t it more intelligent to use the fossil fuels until there is an actual, as opposed to an imaginary, “scarcity?”
Scarcity isn’t imaginary, its just a question of when. And a question of whether the fossil fuel energy can be produced quickly enough to meet demand.
Willis already did an analysis of what it would take to go from where we are today to a fossil fuel free 2050 and he showed it was pretty much impossible and certainly nowhere near what we are currently achieving.
Any plans to wait until 30 or 40 years before “the end of supply” whenever that is forecast, are going to have an enormous impact on society. Much bigger than what we’re experiencing now.
Maybe we’ll have fusion by then? I certainly hope so. But I wouldn’t count on it. Call me skeptical on that one.
“[Superchargers are] all the way along that route. A dozen of them. In fact there were more Superchargers showing than gas stations.”
Unable to reproduce your result – but see below.
A dozen within 100 miles of Grand Forks.
Apology: Google maps switched to Superchargers near Grand Forks.
On the route itself? It surprised me too but that’s what Google was showing at the resolution I has selected.
I’ve heard stories from my German friends about the German tourist who rented an RV (large self-driving camper for those who do not know) for a week to drive around the US. I’m not sure if the story is true, but it does point to the size of the US. If they want to hit Canada also, you’ve got an immense area.
Self driving? :-O
I instantly think of the story about someone who engaged the cruise control in his RV and went into the back to make a sandwich. Didn’t end well.
I doubt there is an EV that can outlast my endurance behind the wheel. In the Big truck I have did 715 miles without stopping in an 11 hour driving shift frequently before they came out with the rule that the driver has to take a 30 minute break within the first 8 hours of their driving shift. Now I often drive nearly 500 miles before I take that required 1/2 hour break.
three years ago in my Toyota FJ I drive straight through from Driggs, Idaho to Anderson, Indiana with only stops to fuel and use the bathroom. That’s over 1,500 miles.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait I was an SF medic. I was an instructor at SOMED which back then was the longest portion of the SF medic training. I was home on leave. When I saw that I told my parents who we were staying with, “we’re going to war” and the next morning cut my leave short and headed out. Drove Straight from Anderson, IN to San Antonio, TX. nment
For weeks I burned up the WATTS line trying to get an assignment to go. The other five SF medics at the course were doing the exact same thing. It go so bad that the Commanding General of US Army Health Services command under who we were serving, sent his adjutant down to our school house and got us together and told us to knock it off. The Commanding general says “your here to teach” and the only way your getting out of here is if you get orders signed by an General Officer that outranks him (He was a Major General),
So I watched as a bunch of reservists and NG types came through Ft, Sam Houston to train up and prepare to deploy and listened to some of them bitch about being called up!
I’m on holidays in southern Saskatchewan
Drove 7 hours Wednesday, another 6 yesterday, 6 tomorrow home to calgary
All on schedule when I want to go
The EVs and their charging is all well and good for early adopters, basically free riders
Eventually it all breaks down
Like those that put solar panels on their roof and crow about independence, but refuse to cut the utility lines
My craziest drive was from Tampa, FL to Las Vegas, NV nonstop. Never again.
Edmonton to Salt Lake City
That was plenty
Orlando, FL to Cedar Rapids, IA to Idaho Falls, ID. ~2500 miles over the course of 2 days, much of the way far exceeding the speed limit. LOL
Last week first trip I left out of the terminal in Anderson, IN for Marshal, MI. From there it was down to Jefferson in Southern, IN. Took a 10 hour break at the Loves at exit 16 off I-65 and then drove back to Anderson.
2nd trip from Anderson to Canton, MI where I was loaded with aluminum wheels for Nissan vehicles being manufactured in Canton, MS and back to Anderson.
3rd trip Anderson to Kansas City Kansas near the airport, there I dropped the trailer I had brought filled with Toyota service parts and then hooked to an empty trailer in a dock and pulled it out and dropped it. Then hooked to the trailer I had brought and put it in the dock, chocked it and put a jack stand under it’s nose. Then hooked up to the empty.
I took the empty to Unilever in Independence, MO and dropped it there and hooked to a trailer preloaded with spice tailings to be recycled. (They make Knorr dry soup mixes at the plant.} I then went to the TA truck stop at Oak Grove, MO, and took my 10 hour break and then at 02:30 local took off for Anderson.
Lately I have been keeping my truck well stocked with provisions because there are shortages and some restaurants closed at some of the truck stops due to lack of help or lack of shipments.
I did not fuel anywhere but at the Anderson, IN terminal all week. For the last trip I left Anderson with full tanks. When I got back I put 132 gallons in.
Mine was Tulsa to San Franciso. Straight through, alone, and it took 22 hours. I was exhausted when I arrived.
The best arguments come from knowledge and understanding and make the best case for the opposing argument while pointing out the issues. Your case is not that.
Are you genuinely ignorant of superchargers that can get appreciable percentage of the charge in well under an hour?
Your argument is about as convincing as an opposing argument that you need to walk to a gas station with a jerrycan every time your Ram Ecodiesal runs out.
Fast charging means greatly reduced battery life
Physics
And more chance of explosions and fires.
That you cannot put out
Oh good
Willis started this suggesting “But what they keep ignoring is that they are totally useless for long trips.”
And he’s right. If most of your travel was long trips then you wouldn’t put up with the inconveniences of charging today. However for the vast majority of people the long trips are rare enough that the argument is largely irrelevant.
I know several drivers who like me travel 50,000 kms every year on average and mostly on country roads and highways.
When I was working (new retired) our company cars were driven on average 30,000 kms every year, most city based but with country driving regularly.
Take taxi drivers as an example, they rack up huge numbers of kms but mostly its well within range of charging and superchargers. They nearly never get rides that stretch battery range and put them in a remote location.
Taxi cabs are usually 24-hour day operated, at least for 16-hours including changes of driver in shifts.
Having to wait hours for a full recharge would be a cost penalty for the owner and the drivers. And an 80 per cent recharge in up to maybe one hour is also a nuisance compared to liquid refills.
In my experience taxi cabs have very high distance readings per year.
“an 80 per cent recharge in up to maybe one hour”
Its possible to do that in less than half an hour and possibly as little as 15 mins depending on the battery capacity in the EV. I expect even taxi drivers need the occasional break.
EVs are cheaper to run so that’s a major consideration too.
Conveniently ignoring, once again, that “rapid charging” reduces battery life and you therefore can’t use those “quick charge” times as if they are the normal routine.
Cheaper to run because you don’t pay road taxes. Burns me up my brother boasting about how cheap his car is to run. Can’t wait for the time when the equivalent taxes are put on EV’s.
No, it’s not irrelevant. What the hell do I want with a vehicle that can’t take me on ANY trip I want to take?! Especially at more than twice the cost of a vehicle that CAN?!
“What the hell do I want with a vehicle that can’t take me on ANY trip I want to take?!”
Mate you need to do some learning. Youtube is loaded with people in EV’s doing long trips. Sure it may mean the trip is slightly longer but it will be much cheaper and probably a whole lot more fun.
So EV manufacturers recommend recharging no more than 80 per cent of battery pack capacity on a regular basis to protect the batteries.
And the battery system limits discharge to not exceed 10 per cent.
Therefore when travelling write off 30 per cent of range before considering the other variable energy consumption items like air conditioning, highway speeds and hills.
So you start at 70% effective “range,” then you can cut that in half for “real world” driving conditions vs. fantasy world “estimated range” operating conditions (at best; reduce by more in extreme conditions), then you can cut THAT in half for prudent “charging stops” so you don’t end up stranded #%&@ knows where.
So multiply “estimated” range by about 17.5%.
I’ll say it again. Useless, virtue-signalling toys for wealthy hypocrites.
It’s all a bait and switch, we are starting to see comments that most people don’t really need a car and so maybe “shouldn’t” have one.
Which will be the answer when the supply hits the demand wall for electricity, battery material, etc.
You can’t go back to the old way, the new way really doesn’t work oops, I guess you’ll just have to live with it.
It’s what happens when we put artists in charge of our technical needs.
I need my engineers on the autism not artism side of the scale.
I’m proudly on the autism side, I occasionally make things that actually work
Maybe the innovative drivers will end up with old vehicles and equip them with charcoal burners to produce gas to fuel the internal combustion engines?
As during and after WW2 in desperation when liquid fuels were rationed.
Then again, we could cut off the engine bay and install shafts for Horses, but the environmentalists would be unhappy with all the poolution resulting.
The public is in denial with regard to EV safety. EV safety is perpetually just another fix from being solved. On April 17th, after an EV car accident, fire fighters doused the vehicle with 28,000 gallons of water over a period of 7 hours in which flames spontaneously reignited:
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/federal-regulators-warn-risks-firefighters-electrical-vehicle-fires-n1271084
In 2019, a Phoenix APS substation designed to store electricity from solar cells ignited. Undaunted, APS still has plans for future installations on its drawing boards, even as an investigation into the fire continues:
https://apnews.com/article/hi-state-wire-fires-us-news-ap-top-news-az-state-wire-5cd81a81345a40f5b1ac2e5556a68ff7
On July 30th in Australia, a Tesla Megapack battery caught fire:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-megapack-catches-fire-at-australian-battery-project-11627635528
“High-voltage batteries like the ones used in Teslas can reignite after being damaged, even after firefighters have extinguished a fire, according to the National Transportation Safety Board,” the article concludes.
Gasoline at the gas pump is rated to flow at 10 gal/min. That is 330 khw of energy per minute.
At 7kw you meet to charge for 47 hours to equal the same amount of energy.
Electric propulsion is not enough of a step up in efficiency to make this practical.
The only solution would be to create hundreds of charging stations for every gas pump.
You basically need 1 charging station per one or two cars, and the car will need to charge at least as much as it drives.
That puts a whole new perspective on waiting in line for things.
Hi Honey, I am second in line at the charging station, I will probably be home tomorrow, 🙂
see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11G4yWUuQ1gTrNjBBWCXuWDIqau7QUuZO/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112477356397851702224&rtpof=true&sd=true
cut and paste to see.
It waa written, obviously in jest, that 90 per cent of EVs sold are still on the roads.
The others made it home.
Brilliant! Hope you don’t mind if I borrow that one.
It has been calculated that to cope with high traffic and increasing in holiday periods that to recharge EVs would require a vast area of land with recharging bays, think about the outdoor drive-in movie businesses and parking area with speakers on poles.
And of course a cafe on site for EV drivers and passengers to fill in time waiting for the 80% hour long recharge, maybe a little less time if the local grid can cope.
The E-Cat SKL has been perfected and is the solution for electric cars. Other new energy sources are also being perfected. See the following: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11G4yWUuQ1gTrNjBBWCXuWDIqau7QUuZO/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112477356397851702224&rtpof=true&sd=true
You may have to copy and past the URL above to activate it.
Uh, why do they assume there is only one driver?
(Don McCollor)…The obvious thing was in the first gas crisis in the 1970’s when they tried to think things through.. EV’s needed swappable battery packs (like a cordless drill). Pull in to a station, swap out the battery for a charged one, and be on your way..The station could recharge batteries at leisure….
And how would the deteriorating replacement battery pack condition be costed, and who would the loser be, EV driver/owner or battery station owners?
How would EV warranty consider an EV that had many battery pack replacements before a warranty issue was raised?
The only way I can think to solve this problem is to have the automaker retain ownership of the battery back, and just rent them out to the car buyer.
Of course that would mean the swapping station would have to maintain sufficient batteries from each of the many EV manufacturers to make sure they always had a fully charged battery on hand.
Of course this problem could be solved by having all batteries owned by some third party, instead of the manufacturers or car buyers.
A cordless drill battery weighs a pound or two. A car battery weighs hundreds of pounds to around 1000 pounds.
First thing you need to do is get all the car manufacturers to standardize on one or two battery styles. If you think your change out station is going to stock half a dozen batteries of each of several dozen styles, you’re crazy.
Then you are going to have to buy a custom built robotic arm that is capable of swapping out those very heavy batteries, all without damaging the delicate electrical connectors.
Thirdly, if you think they will be able to build an affordable robot that is capable of doing that in under 15 minutes or so, you have never studied mechanical engineering.
You also have to handle those batteries gently, no hard bangs. Otherwise you risk having the battery go up in flames while charging.
Then there is the problem of where do those batteries get stored while they are being charged and until they get swapped back out?
If they are on racks, then the racks have to be strong enough to carry a large number of very heavy batteries. You also need some way to isolate those batteries from each other. You don’t want one battery catching fire to incinerate your entire inventory.
Combine that with the problem of swapping out a brand new battery for one that is on it’s last recharge, and you have a solution that will never work in the real world.
Fast chargers are much faster. The supercharger network is a fast charging network for Teslas. Non-Tesla EVs have a separate (much worse, for now) network.
Depending on the state of charge, etc, you can refill 200 miles of charge in about 20 minutes.
If you live in China, you can buy a NIO SUV that has access to a network of a few hundred battery swapping stations. They swap out a dead battery for a full one in about 5 minutes.
Nothing can compete with the convenience of diesel for road trips. For typical commuting, EVs are more convenient than diesel. You take 10 seconds to plug in at home, recharge overnight and start every day with a full charge.
If you conveniently ignore, once again, the fact that this reduces battery life and is therefore not the “typical” charge time you can expect routinely.
And that “200 miles worth” is another “estimate” based on completely ridiculous operating condition “assumptions,” which in the real world will probably cut that in half or more.
“How Long Does it Take to Charge an Electric Vehicle?: There is no simple answer, but knowing the variables will help you better estimate the time it takes for an EV fill-up.” By K.C. Colwell | May 22, 2020 | CarAndDriver.com
Ignoring tesla:
“granny chargers”! are 2.7kW (standard wall socket)
dedicated home chargers are 7kw
3 phase home chargers are 22kw
In the wild there are
rapid >=100kw 100kW-350kW
Fast ~=50kW
Plus all the other destination chargers and people willing to share their home charger!
Many supermarkets have free 7kw and paid for/free 50kW chargers in car park
I do not understand why people are talking 7kW!
the speed to full charge is not only dependant on the max charge delivery rate but also on battery charge level and temperature. This mainly applies to the 100kW+ chargers which may reduce rate to 50kw if hot/v-cold or near full charge
tw0 screen shots rapid and fast chargers in uk
above is rapid and fast. this is rapid and both exclude tesla
Why I am not interested in buying an EV;
* The price is too high, an equivalent ICE model far less money, the difference between ICEV and EV before an EV buyer breaks even would pay for a lot of liquid fuel and services.
* Inconvenience of recharging stopovers, full charge takes several hours, 80% charge up to an hour, but when travelling in the countryside I need maximum range all the time.
I am concerned about exothermic reaction and very difficult to extinguish fire hazard.
The only reason why EV’s are currently cheaper to operate is that at present, the fuel used by EVs is being subsdized. Once the government finds that it can no longer maintain that subsidey (as percentage of EVs goes up), then that advantage disappears. It may even reverse.
The maintenance issue is not that big. The only regular maintenance for an ICE that isn’t present on an EV is oil changes. $15 to $20 dollars, 3 or 4 times a year.
The engine for your ICE will probably last longer than the battery for an EV, and the engine will last longer as well.
“and the engine will last longer as well….”
Nope. Estimated life of the model three engines is around 1 million miles. Way fewer moving parts. Find me a ICE engine that will reliably do that?
I sincerely hope that EV fans who buy thinking about the environment are aware of the environmental issues in an EV production, and disposal of batteries?
And take care to only recharge from renewable energy direct sources, not suppliers buying tax credit offsets and selling fossil fuel generated electricity ….. meaning most of the word’s electricity supply.
“Renewables” are 100% fossil fuel dependent anyway, so getting your “juice” from wind and solar is nothing more than virtue signalling. EVs are all ultimately coal, oil, gas or nuclear powered, for the most part. A bit of hydro here and there. Wind and solar are just indirect coal and oil and nuclear (and a bit of hydro) powered.
I live in Alberta, in Western Canada. Population 4.3 million. There are no, zero, public charging stations in this province. There are huge distances between cities. In winter it gets cold, and stays that way for four months. In the city I live in, it is currently impossible to buy a new electric car and get in it and drive it on the same day you pay for it. You have to have it delivered from somewhere else.
70 percent of vehicles bought here in a given year are used. You can buy a safety inspected, insurable gas car here for as little as $4000. You can get in it the day you buy it, gas it up, and drive it 800 miles due north with no fear that you won’t be able to refuel it along the way.
The cheapest electric car available is about $40,000, and that would be a silly little golf cart with a range between charges of about 100 miles.
I live in a city (Edmonton) with a population of 981,000. I’m just guessing but I’ll bet that there are less than ten EVs in this city, and most of those are Teslas. I will also bet that most of the EV owners have annual incomes of $100,000 or greater, and all of them own other, gas-powered vehicles.
So, barring any major technological advances in the production and performance of electric cars, there is no way that electric cars will ever by anything but a tiny niche market here. No way.
But the average driver only drives 35 kms a day so EV is easily capable of that range.
Yes, but who can afford one when an ICEV costs at most half the price for an equivalent?
Then why cart around even a 200 kms range battery pack and heavy weight, far greater than a tank of liquid fuel for the same range that is much lighter when full of fuel?
Cut the range to 100 kms for a cheaper and lighter EV.
Yes I know, the tiny market would be even less so the kms per day sales pitch is ridiculous.
“What we are seeing is that once you have a range above 400 miles, more range doesn’t really matter. There are essentially zero trips above 400 miles where the driver doesn’t need to stop for restroom, food, coffee, etc. anyway.”
My first car was a 1968 Jeep, which I drove between home in St. Louis County, MO, to college in Melbourne, FL back in 1972-74. It was exactly 1,100 miles from my driveway at home to the parking lot at school. The first time I did it, I didn’t get out of the car once, including to gas it up – the gas tank was under the driver’s seat, and I could refuel without leaving the seat. It took me exactly 20 hours and 30 minutes to make that first trip. Subsequent trips took longer, because the “gas crisis” hit somewhere in there, and speed limits were greatly (and unsafely) reduced. But even today, at age 67, I can go more than 400 miles without stopping for any reason.
You must be a camel!
I’ve been driving since I was twelve years old in the 1960’s and was an ‘undocumented driver’ during the three years before I got my license.
In the state where I grew up, you could obtain a driver’s license at the age of fifteen if you took a driver’s training class. Which I did in the summer of 1967.
In driver’s ed, first you do the classroom work, then they put you into a car and give you what is supposed to be your first driving experience behind the wheel.
In our case, the first drive was done in a large parking lot near our high school.
Three of us students and the instructor went out into the lot and got into the driver’s ed car. It was an absolutely beautiful red and white 1967 Pontiac Catalina.
I was first up. We went around the parking lot several times, and then the instructor asked me this question. “How long have you been driving a car?”
“Three years. Both automatic and stick shift. I like stick shift better.”
Then he said, “OK. Let’s go out onto the street and see how well you do.” After we got back, he noted that I had picked up some bad habits which needed to be corrected. These problems were emphasized to the other two students who were riding in the back seat.
Nothing more was said about it. I finished up the driver’s ed course and got my license at the end of the summer with 100% on the written test and 96% on the driving test.
They also forget to consider the case where there aren’t any free charging points. Most motorway service stations I’ve visited have a handful of charging stations. Imagine that when you pull in for your 200 mile charge, you take your ticket from the charging receptionist or whatever (probably an automatic machine anyway), you’re number 105 and they’re only calling for numbers 40 to 45? Do you (risk) driving to the next station which is at a Starbucks hoping for more luck? Maybe you can use your handy app to tell you the nearest available charging point is. But what if it’s busy when you get their?
The practicalities of electric car ownership are outlined pretty well here….
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-i-regret-buying-an-electric-car
Somewhere in the suburb of Melbourne Victoria in Australia, in Port Melbourne, managers of a high rise building containing commercial and residential owners and tenants inquired about installing EV charge points in the underground carpark, the electrician checked it out and made an inquiry to the electricity supplier about installation.
The answer was no based on the local area grid not being suitable to handle the extra demand without major upgrading, like new sub-stations etc.
I wonder what the answer would be if all of the buildings in Melbourne CBD and surrounding districts applied for EV charge points, 415v 3-phase for example?
Don’t forget the danger of having an EV catch fire while charging. Not fun in an underground parking garage.
As a UK plug-in hybrid owner I love that I can easily get over 100mpg and have no range anxiety for long trips. We need this technology at least until there is a much much better charging network. I love that my local town journeys are just pennies and I don’t run tail-pipe. I hate being behind someone else’s exhaust in traffic and I can be part of the solution to that.
Most trips in the UK are under 30 miles.
People on the UK motorway network will usually stop for food or coffee or bathroom break – long enough to charge an EV.
Maybe the US is different, but there isn’t a range issue in the UK.
Gotta love Griff … I quote the UK Climate Spokesbabe for the PM saying there IS a range issue in the UK.
So of course griff, your basic internet popup coward who doesn’t have the courage to sign his own name, says there ISN’T a range issue in the UK.
Guess which one I’m gonna listen to …
w.
I don’t know many people who need an hour for a potty break.
yeah range vs chargetime
its 450km approx to either large city near me a 5hr drive
i do stop to eat, loo, let dogs out for about 20mins
dont think stopping halfway for 10hrs to charge would make anything enjoyable
and then theres no ecar that will FIT 5 very large dogs on the market in aus either
and to this day Ive seen ONE ecar charger setup anywhere on that road
I suppose all those living near roads and possibly growing food bathed in lead should just have moved to the countryside?
got that wrong this was a reply to Dennis August 8, 2021 4:59 am
Lead was removed from gasoline 40 or 50 years ago.
The levels of lead you would find on a country road couldn’t be measured by the most sensitive instruments available at the time.
Please consider leftist environmental agenda for transport vehicles since 1970s;
* Unleaded petrol at a cost of many billions of dollars for oil refineries and internal combustion engine modifications.
* Remove sulphur from diesel costs as above
And when completed a new demand that ICEV be replaced by EV, tried and rejected around 1900 because of the high prices and inconvenience of range and recharging, etc.
Dennis, do you really think the conversion to unleaded gasoline and low sulphur diesel was not worth it? Back in those days we had thick smog in the city centers.
The air today is much better and healthier; much of it because of low sulphur diesel an unleaded gasoline with catalytic cleaning.
I have some power tools that use lithium batteries, and the tools run at full power right up until they run out of juice, and then they just stop completely.
So what happens to your Tesla if you are driving down the highway at a high rate of speed, and then the battery quits on you? Do you have steering to get the car off the highway and onto the shoulder after the battery quits? I imagine this would be a rare occurance, but what would happen if it did occur?
They montor the power in and the power out and they then give warnings at around 5% capacity and when “empty” will switch to turtle mode for perhaps a couple of km
That’s good. At least you wouldn’t be sitting in the middle of the highway with a depleted Tesla.
Of course, as I said, this would be a rare occurrence since the car would give you plenty of warning in advance, and apparently Musk has planned for this problem already. I wasn’t doubting that, I just didn’t know the particulars.
Now come along, get with the program folks.
I have a handy assist for these “extended” journeys we sometimes make.
It is called a tow hitch, though I am working on a roof mounted option for those not able to reverse a small trailer.
Anyway, this is the whole option I am offering. You get a tow hitch fitted then buy a small diesel gen set with trailer, and a lead from said trailer to electric vehicle.
When you have completed say 150 miles you press the remote gen set start up switch and it pumps power into the depleted battery as you drive along. By the time you have completed 400 miles your battery is fully charged up ready for a refuel of your gen set trailer rig, about ten gals of diesel should do it.
What could be simpler. I am thinking of pitching it around the £990 price range.
What do you think?
First of all I think you can’t charge it while driving it; so you’ll need to sit by the side of the road for hours waiting for the charge to be completed, or for the generator fuel to run out.
Typically, a WUWT comment thread will run out of gas at around 100 comments or so. This one is now at 360 and is still going strong. Just saying.
So if I travel from Melbourne to Canberra in my EV car, I will drive through to Holbrook. That’s about three hours driving ….say, 7am to 10am. Then wait for ten hours to recharge. Not much happening in Holbrook. The pub for lunch and dinner while I wait for the recharge to happen. Now it’s 8pm, it’s dark, and the semi trailers are roaring up the highway. Good, then I’ll drive another two hundred miles to say Jugiong and get in about 11pm. I’ll be sleeping in my car while I recharge (is that safe?) because nothing will be open. Then by 9am the car will be charged and I can continue on to Canberra. About 27 hours for the journey. In my present car it would take me about 7-8 hours with a couple of short stops.
Funniest article I’ll read today. Sounds like EV’s are the most expensive paper weights ever made.
Their justification for the electric car is weak and against human nature.
People need a vehicle that is ready to go at any time not hours later. And it is not up to investors and enthusiasts politicians to tell us what we need. Although some think that is their job.
I’m disappointed that more effort hasn’t been put into hybrids.
To me they are the best solution to reducing vehicular CO2 emissions and still managing long distances. I like my Ford Escape. I can do most of my in-town driving on battery and my trip in and out interstate/hwy recharges me for the next trip.
Philip, that is far too sensible an option. The Greens won’t allow any of that fossil fuel charging as you go nonsense, hybrids indeed!
Yup! Totally useless for long trips, totally useless when you have power outages, and downright dangerous to have parked in your garage, especially if it is attached to your home.
And, of course, they want to shove “battery electric vehicles” down people’s throats at exactly the same time they are working overtime to make the electric grid unstable and unreliable, and the price of electricity extremely high.
But hey, what’s not to like?
As I’ve said before, “electric cars” will only be a “thing” when they can draw power from the roads and paths they operate on. Don’t hold your breath.
Willis,
I’m pretty impressed by your map, and its overlay of Texas.
But some facts might be pertinent.
England is about the size of Louisiana, and contains about 1/5th of the US population.
Worse still the bulk population is concentrated in just three regions. The western M62, The Midlands and The SE. Corona paradise.
For American readers, nobody in England is more than 60 miles from the Sea.
I simply, as with Australia, can’t imagine journies, a couple of thousand miles, to get from one place to another?
In my defence, I once made it from the Scottish Highlands back to the southern border of West Yorkshire in 3 hours. (about an average of 130 mph for the math challenged)
Nothing seems to bring out the heat at WUWT like electric car discussions. Toss in “guest post by Willis Eschenbach” and the comments go on for days.
EVs have come a long way since the old Detroit Electric and I firmly believe they are a practical choice for some people. I won’t have one but my brother owns two and they are indeed a blast to drive. Owners do seem to find ways to live with the range and charging limitations, just as owners of early automobiles put up with their flaws.
But several common misconceptions do deserve corrections:
Buy an EV if you want to and we can get along just fine. Just don’t coerce everyone else into buying one on the false claim it will have any impact on global CO2 emissions.
Uh .. that 400 mi range? How many people will drive their ev anywhere near that maximum? Esp. when far from home … long distance to next charger … in unknown area. And consider how many factors can combine to drain your battery and range faster … hills .. traffic speed car accessories … wind … etc etc. the battery drain is never a straight line function. Nobody in their right mind would push their ev to a near full drain. Because a total discharge of the battery does what to your ev? Oh yeah … it destroys the car.
when I run out of gas? I call AAA … I don’t have to junk my car’s battery array
My 2017 Honda accord will get 800km highway driving in minus 40C winter driving and plus 40c summer driving. Take minutes to refuel. I often go from Regina to Saskatoon and back in a day for meetin a 3 hour meeting – round trip 550km. No silly EV for me.
Fun fact: If you calculate the hydrocarbon combustion released energy corresponding to the annual global emission of CO2, it corresponds to a forcing of 0.1-0.2 watts / m^2. Not too far short of the lowest CO2 sensitivity estimates.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2021/08/06/could-fossil-fuel-warming-be-just-combustion-heat-not-radiative-whatnot/
Fun fact: your fun fact is wrong by an order of magnitude.
From Our World In Data, I find global fossil fuel consumption to be 135,807E+12 watthours per year.
Dividing that by 8,765 hours per year to get back to watts, then dividing that by earth’s surface area of 5.11E+14 square metres gives us 0.03 W/m2 … trivially small.
It does have an effect, albeit tiny, in extremely crowded countries and cities. But globally, it’s lost in the noise.
w.
Yes I found an error in my maths which when corrected gave me also 0.03 W/m2.
Here is an article that points out that in the UK, range will be severely curtailed, because the National Grid will not be able to cope. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9872451/RICHARD-NORTH-problem-electricity-come-electric-cars.html
I am visualising a Built Back Better future where, in a manner similar to the horse and carriage era, travelers would change EVs every 100miles at EV stations.
You wouldn’t actually own the EV, you would just lease them for the journey and swap to a new one every 300km or so. Coaching Stations would have stables/garages filled with fresh EVs ready to go and travelers would actually be able to keep moving after their 10 minute break to bathroom and snack.
Of course some people might be asking what you do if you final destination ISN’T actually within walking distance of the Coaching Station? Simple. You lease something with an IC engine when you drop off the EV for the remaining 100 or so kilometres!
It would be fine. Under Built Back Better most great unwashed will not be issued internal travel passports anyway, and the truly important people would all travel to Martha’s Vineyard by private jet. Hence each Coaching Station would only need about 20 EVs maximum at any one time.
New Green.
Perfection!
What could possibly go wrong?
If we had abundant electricity from nuclear fusion, and if batteries didn’t require all of the raw materials from China, and …, it would be Nirvana except for air travel. We all should be staying closer to home in our self-contained little communities anywho.
And that’s assuming you don’t have to wait for the guy at the “pump” ahead of you to finish his recharge before you can start.
Right now, it’s not a big deal, very few people drive electric cars so when you find a charging station, it’s usually free.
That math changes when they start forcing the majority of people into them. All the sudden everyone needs to charge their cars. If it takes each one of them 1.5 to 2 hours to charge up and you’re third in line…you’re talking about a nice, refreshing 8 hour lunch and bathroom break before continuing your journey. You may as well just consider a single charge the range you’re going to get per day and get hotel rooms at every stop.
Right now I can make the trip to my childhood home (where most of my relatives still live) in about 12 hours. It’s 700 miles. When they finally outlaw gas cars and force me into an electric, it looks like that same trip is going to take over 3 days.
i can’t wait
Sailorcurt, see my comment from two days ago regarding how you will go about visiting Auntie Em in a Green New Deal America.
I’ve taken an Amtrak train several times on long trips from the US Northwest to the upper Midwest to visit relatives living there.
These trips took about thirty hours, but I was completely refreshed when I got there. Saw a lot of scenery along the way too.
On one of these trips, the train was delayed in a town in northern Montana because robbers were holding hostages in a bank directly across from the train station.
The train stopped a quarter of a mile or so past the station near a grocery store parking lot and the passengers had to get on or off there.
It looks to me that most of the arguments on how an EV might be made to work are predicated on some necessity to replace internal combustion engines. Not so much on how EV performance has any more utility than the ICE. Range, load, versatility, convenience all go the other way. So the path to EV is based primarily on driving up the cost of ICE through mandates, penalties, supply interference, … while artificially lowering the cost of EV using those same mechanisms. That and massive, comprehensive and misleading PR.
Attaboy, Coach. You nailed it. Check out the apologias for electric cars, and you can spot the lies in mere seconds. EVs cost more? Not to worry. They cost less to operate, so you’ll get our money back. (after ten years, and the battery capacity has degraded, but never mind.) Greater torque? So what, unless you’re a drag racer. Falling prices? When? How did Teslas $35,000 sedan program work out?