MotorsportsGordon said:In the future though it could be that both hybrid and ev could be potentially replaced by other alternatives like hydrogen etc.
The energy conversion process to generate hydrogen, and then actually put it to use in a fuel cell is so energy expensive it doesn't really make sense to go hydrogen. With battery tech progressing the way it is, i doubt hydrogen will stick around in the next decade.
About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
i know i'm in "crazy blue state CA" but my apt does have EV charging spaces for an additional fee.
LA is full of covered parking, so while it wouldn't be cheap/free to do, retrofitting more celing mounted chargers wouldn't be terribly diffuclt, and could be centrally managed to regulate demand/draw
Hybrids in the used market are still relevant; not so much new.
Lets us poorer folk see the EV side of things while we still have our ICE as a "safety net" until we get comfortable with the unfounded range anxiety. "Oh, you mean I can essentially fill my car up while I sleep? For pennies?"
Until used full EVs hit that sweet used market price, hybrids will remain useful but I'm just not sure how long that'll be. Used S' when Tesla was still getting used to making cars are still pretty expensive even with high mileage.
Edit: For the apartment worries. When I lived in San Diego, so many places had covered parking that also had solar panels. If apartments were to start throwing panels up on their covered parking, I don't see why they couldn't implement some sort of a low-level charging station.
Plus it'll let them charge even higher prices for those that want to use them.
Now that I know that the throttle lever for ships turns engines on and off, this world is a much more amazing place. That is, perhaps, one of the coolest things I've learned...
Another interesting point... Move X years into the future and have many/most/all cars simply charging up overnight at home... what do all the local Speedway, Shell, and BP stations become? You go in there and buy overpriced whatever because you happen to be stopping for fuel and want to exercise your general lack of consideration for your fellow motorist, right?
What does that turn in to and do we have a bunch of them closing up in favor of a more NYC-style bodega type of store?
In reply to Knurled. :
At home my car is garaged, and it's fairly warm in there. no worries. Parked at work, no dice. The car is out in the exposed parking lot at ambient temp without a charging option. An electric car will need to be able to handle at least one, but entirely possible to see two completely cold starts, frosted windows and all, without being plugged in to be functional as a replacement to ICE. Youtube seems to indicate in below freezing weather to expect around a 40% reduction in range. Technically a 200 mile range vehicle should do it, but I'd be uncomfortably close to needing to supercharge somewhere every single day doing my normal routine.
Duke said:Keith Tanner said:You don't need three competing charging centers at the same crossroads like you have with gas stations.
You do if you want competitive pricing per watt. Besides, it's perfectly possible to put 15 gallons of gas into an ICE vehicle in 5 minutes. That means a lot of customer throughput per pump.
When it takes 20 minutes per charge, that means your vehicles-per-pump just fell from somewhere around 10 per hour to 3 per hour.
Unless you have a lot of charging stations immediately available, that will be like every single customer leaves their car at the pump while they go into the station to use the restroom, order a sandwich, get a fancy coffee, play their favorite lottery numbers, and have a cigarette.
To me this means the architecture of the refueling station/charge station will be different. Instead of an island of 4-6-8-etc chargers it'll be like Sonic or any old school style drive-in with many more bays that aren't monopolozing land. Maybe an entire lower floor like a parking garage chargine away and a second story for the convenience store. I'm imagining a blend of gas station/hipster coffee shop/7eleven.
RevRico said:In reply to Duke :
But you're missing a part there. With the availability of home charging, aside from turnpike and interstate rest stops, why would there be a line?
Because the total homeownership rate in the US is about 65% and that includes condos and urban dwellings that only have street parking.
I agree, we're going to get there. I just think we're not there yet.
I would not own a pure electric vehicle as my only car right now. I would own a hybrid as my only car because it gives you the widest range of options.
My wife is the ideal candidate for a BEV. Her round trip commute is about 5 miles. They don't offer charging where she works but even charging at 110v at home she would only have to charge the car one night every other week.
The flip side of that is that I typically put about 200 gallons of gas in her car a year which means that an EV just makes no economical sense for her.
In the future, I would definitely own a BEV. 10 years from now we will likely be shopping to replace DW's car. Especially since we'll be retired by then, we will absolutely shop BEVs.
Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
So if EV's raise the price of renting, what about the low end of the economic scale? Seems to me that it lowers the possibility that EV's will become universal. Lots and lots of people live on the edge of the economy- can't forget about them.
TGMF said:In reply to Knurled. :
At home my car is garaged, and it's fairly warm in there. no worries. Parked at work, no dice. The car is out in the exposed parking lot at ambient temp without a charging option. An electric car will need to be able to handle at least one, but entirely possible to see two completely cold starts, frosted windows and all, without being plugged in to be functional as a replacement to ICE. Youtube seems to indicate in below freezing weather to expect around a 40% reduction in range. Technically a 200 mile range vehicle should do it, but I'd be uncomfortably close to needing to supercharge somewhere every single day doing my normal routine.
We're living with that right now, I've reported on it in my Tesla thread. Our car is currently set to use 80% battery, which means 238 miles of range according to the car. It drives from home, sits in an exposed parking lot until lunch, gets pre-warmed, drives home into the semi-heated garage (usually in the high 50s), gets pre-warmed, drives back to work, sits, gets pre-warmed, drives to my sister-in-law's house, sits, gets pre-warmed, drives home. The car's also been driven out of town as part of this routine a few times and even skipped charging overnight a couple of times while the garage door was broken. Turns out that getting home with 30 miles of range on the display isn't any different than getting home with 150.
alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
So if EV's raise the price of renting, what about the low end of the economic scale? Seems to me that it lowers the possibility that EV's will become universal. Lots and lots of people live on the edge of the economy- can't forget about them.
What if those people didn't have to pay for gasoline?
Eventually it'll become a commodity like having Wifi or some sort of internet access in the building. Or like having your own bathroom instead of one down the hall. I'll admit that I don't live in that particular economic strata so I can't say I know exactly what it's like, but I imagine it will trickle down. Those who are buying $500 junkers to get to work because they have no other option will definitely be the last to adopt, but it may become more difficult to feed and care for an ICE and the economics might flip.
I think, with regard to the original question and agreeing with an earlier mostly-unreferenced post by STM317, there is still a strong use case for a plug in hybrid.
I can't stop thinking about the fact that a hybrid with 30 miles of electric range would do the VAST majority of my daily errands entirely on electric power.
And while I'm still wrestling with myself over the question of just how much I would dislike having to find a charger and wait for a charge on road trips (still recovering from Leaf ownership in the infrastructure of 2014), the real win is in terms of only needing 30 miles worth of expensive battery. Because for now, the other 170-270 miles of battery range is more expensive than an ICE, isn't it?
I wonder how quickly that will change.
Keith Tanner said:alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
So if EV's raise the price of renting, what about the low end of the economic scale? Seems to me that it lowers the possibility that EV's will become universal. Lots and lots of people live on the edge of the economy- can't forget about them.
What if those people didn't have to pay for gasoline?
At the same time, this same economic group would be hypothetically be the last one who would be getting an EV during the EV's life, which would suggest that the would also be fitting the bill to replace the battery packs when they wear out- which they will. I personally don't see the appeal of getting an EV when you are faced with that spend.
EV's are a very good solution to very many people. They are not for many others. At least right now and for the foreseeable future.
It seems that many people ignore the cost of just barely keeping a car on the road at the end of it's lifespan. Gas cars can be pretty cheap to barely keep on the road, as their failure modes rarely are engines completely shutting down.
Knurled. said:wae said:In reply to kevlarcorolla :
I've always thought that the diesel-electric locomotive was a great blueprint for how to make a more efficient road-going truck. I can only assume that there are packaging concerns and costs that prevent that from being as good of an idea in reality as it is inside my own head. What better way to get lots of torque for towing than a decently-sized electric motor with an on-board generator to keep it running when you need all the torques but enough battery pack to let you plug in overnight and commute to the office without burning any gasoline. But there are people way smarter than I am doing this for a living so I can only assume there are lots of good reasons that won't work.
Weight. From the mouth of someone who wanted the same thing, the issue is they can't afford the weight. That is why they run the engine all night for heat or air conditioning, instead of just carrying a secondary APU (also running on Diesel, running the same cooling circuits) that would be much more efficient.
He also had stories about being so close to max weight that he was told to just add fuel every hundred miles, full fuel tanks would have put him over.
It's a great idea, and maybe if there was some regulatory leeway for hybrid systems' weight, but that would ruffle all kinds feathers for all manner of reasons, I'm sure.
I'm talking about a 1/2 ton pickup not a semi.
Keith Tanner said:If there's going to be an on-board generator, I'd love to see it along the locomotive concept. Have it chug along generating electricity to fill the battery. No physical connection to the wheels, which takes a complicated transmission out of the picture. Since it's just a generator running at its ideal speed and load, it's easier to optimize for efficiency and emissions. Heck, make it a microturbine! it worked for the Adam West batmobile.
This will definitely not be a good solution for those who love the sounds and feel of an ICE, it would be the exact opposite.
Thats the exact scenio I mean.
In reply to Duke :
Fair enough. I won't get into the napkin math here, but you had me do some quick calculating, and I got an interesting number of about half the people in my county owning all the vehicles in it. I'm kinda curious to see how those numbers would work elsewhere.
I've put gas in my truck 8 times in 2 years I've owned it. Very very different from my years of putting on 50k miles a year. Mpg, cost of fuel, available of fuel, currently makes no difference to me. It would be considerably more expensive if I just went straight to an EV, but I'm drawn to them for the good and the bad they come with.
It just seems like everybody forgets how easy an extension cord is when these threads come up, and I also forget that people willingly live all boxed together on top of each other because I can't understand the why. (And before cost comes up, my mortgage approval after taxes and insurance is a $650/month payment, without a drug problem or more kids, I can't rent an apartment for less than $900/month)
alfadriver said:At the same time, this same economic group would be hypothetically be the last one who would be getting an EV during the EV's life, which would suggest that the would also be fitting the bill to replace the battery packs when they wear out- which they will. I personally don't see the appeal of getting an EV when you are faced with that spend.
They will treat it just like their bretheren who buy a fully-depreciated luxury car with a little life left as soon as anything even slightly major breaks: junk it and move on to the next victim.
alfadriver said:It seems that many people ignore the cost of just barely keeping a car on the road at the end of it's lifespan. Gas cars can be pretty cheap to barely keep on the road, as their failure modes rarely are engines completely shutting down.
No... not the engines, but usually other pricey parts, most notably transmissions. It's been my experience that the "repair" for a modern computer-controlled automatic is to replace it. Often at a cost that is close to the value of the car. BCM's are another often pricey part to replace.
If we remember, our own Mazduece proved battery packs can be DIY servicable at a reasonable cost (his Insight thread?). It's just a different repair. Just as EFI forced repair folks to embrace computers, EV's will force another evolution.
Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
Does the tech for inductive charging pads seem like it's going to be viable?
alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
So if EV's raise the price of renting, what about the low end of the economic scale? Seems to me that it lowers the possibility that EV's will become universal. Lots and lots of people live on the edge of the economy- can't forget about them.
What if those people didn't have to pay for gasoline?
At the same time, this same economic group would be hypothetically be the last one who would be getting an EV during the EV's life, which would suggest that the would also be fitting the bill to replace the battery packs when they wear out- which they will. I personally don't see the appeal of getting an EV when you are faced with that spend.
EV's are a very good solution to very many people. They are not for many others. At least right now and for the foreseeable future.
It seems that many people ignore the cost of just barely keeping a car on the road at the end of it's lifespan. Gas cars can be pretty cheap to barely keep on the road, as their failure modes rarely are engines completely shutting down.
You're picturing a battery "wear out" as an instantaneous failure, the equivalent of a rod through the block. I don't doubt this could happen. But as battery packs age, they just lose their ability to hold a full charge. It's more like increased oil consumption and decreased fuel economy in that case. Given what we're seeing of projected battery lifespan, this will be at a similar mileage to an ICE wearing out as well.
If could be that the mechanically simpler EV is easier to keep running at the beater stage. There are simply fewer moving parts.
Knurled. said:Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
Does the tech for inductive charging pads seem like it's going to be viable?
Seems to work for phones. Does it scale? :) I don't honestly know.
EV owner here, they're great! They're also really expensive, so maybe in 20 years I can afford a Tesla and get rid of my ICE cars? Realistically, hybrid ain't going nowhere until batteries are super cheap.
For the record I put EV's in the same catagory as Beyond Meat products....replacing one problem with another while solving none.
Untill the big ball of fire in the sky can be properly harnessed to power everything its all a waste of time/planets resources.
Another thing with ev that will create a problem up here in Canada and northern states is when we have these bad cold spells. During that time we had some rolling outages with power and have been advised to try and cut down on power use as much as we can. Ie don't do laundry etc etc. But what is going to happen in those times if we more or everybody is charging vehicles.
Keith Tanner said:alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:About the "apartment dwellers can't charge" problem - and it's a legit problem - I think the market will solve that. Apartments with charging access will become more valuable, which will encourage building owners to install chargers. Heck, it's not unusual for cold areas to have plugs for block heaters in parking lots because that's something that people value, this is the same basic concept.
So if EV's raise the price of renting, what about the low end of the economic scale? Seems to me that it lowers the possibility that EV's will become universal. Lots and lots of people live on the edge of the economy- can't forget about them.
What if those people didn't have to pay for gasoline?
At the same time, this same economic group would be hypothetically be the last one who would be getting an EV during the EV's life, which would suggest that the would also be fitting the bill to replace the battery packs when they wear out- which they will. I personally don't see the appeal of getting an EV when you are faced with that spend.
EV's are a very good solution to very many people. They are not for many others. At least right now and for the foreseeable future.
It seems that many people ignore the cost of just barely keeping a car on the road at the end of it's lifespan. Gas cars can be pretty cheap to barely keep on the road, as their failure modes rarely are engines completely shutting down.
You're picturing a battery "wear out" as an instantaneous failure, the equivalent of a rod through the block. I don't doubt this could happen. But as battery packs age, they just lose their ability to hold a full charge. It's more like increased oil consumption and decreased fuel economy in that case. Given what we're seeing of projected battery lifespan, this will be at a similar mileage to an ICE wearing out as well.
If could be that the mechanically simpler EV is easier to keep running at the beater stage. There are simply fewer moving parts.
That's true on how they fail, but I honestly don't think that someone is going to buy a car that's only capable of driving 30 miles on a charge. That's very different than feeding a car gas or oil.
Mechanically, yea, EV's should be simpler. But the way they wear out isn't as easy to deal with, as I see it. At least right now - the quantum change in battery tech could happen, and the cost goes down enough that the swap will be viable. But that's not the current versions of batteries- cobalt is far too expensive for that to be reasonable.
BTW, I really wonder how used Leaf's are doing in poor neighborhoods. They are the most common EV out there, afterall, and the lowest cost one. So it's not as if we don't have any data.
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