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Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

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Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#11

Post by gremlinsinc »

dpweb wrote: post #3

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

Why can't the car generate electricity and last like 5x as long? Each wheel could probably generate quite a bit of static electricity and refuel the tank. Honestly I think hybrids will be the go-to method for the next decade or two, unless they can get batteries to 500+ miles. -- If they get the battery to 1000 miles though it's game over for gasoline cars though.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#12

Post by Retric »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #6
dpweb wrote: post #3

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

Couldn't agree more! When I go on a car trip I want it to be a long way away, and a long way from any thing. That's why most electric cars can't be my only car, and I don't want two cars either. For someone like me a plug-in hybrid like the Volt makes a lot more sense because I can drive it ten hours out into the desert when I want to. The only reason we're reaching a tipping point in the American car market is becau…

Electric cars can do 800+ miles a day easily with sold charging infrastructure. Sure, if you want to do a cannon ball run rent a car, but 4 hours of driving, get lunch, another 4 hours of driving, take a 30 minute break, 2 hours of driving, dinner anther 4 hours of driving get some sleep. That's an extra 30 minute break for 14 hour road trip.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#13

Post by honkhonkpants »

hyperbovine wrote: post #8
dpweb wrote: post #3

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

> Gas is what 2 minutes? Depends quite a lot on where you are. There are 12 gas stations south of 96th St. in Manhattan. SF will have lost 40% of the service stations it had 10 years ago as of 2017. Boston, same. The gas station at Divisadero and Fell has what looks like a 20 minute wait at all times. This is all due to real estate prices. Getting gas in affluent coastal metropolises is not a pleasant experience. Not…

20 minutes is still 30x faster than charging. And how many charging stations do you think there are south of 96th street?

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#14

Post by will_hughes »

pdwetz wrote: post #5
kalleboo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're just commuting, an electric car has it's own convenience - every morning it's full up and ready to go as it's been charging in your garage all night. No need to even think about remaining range or if you need to fill up or what gas station to go to.

Unless you renting and don't have access to a plug. Or want to go on a weekend trip. Electric is interesting, but nothing more as a result for me personally.

These are common arguments. But really it comes down to your last comment "Electric is interesting, but nothing more as a result for me personally"

Okay, fine.

There's solutions for all the other stuff.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#15

Post by haddr »

fma wrote: post #10

I was looking at buying a new car recently. I wanted a commuter car while my wife kept the utilitarian Rav 4. I wanted to buy the GM Spark, the electric version. http://www.chevrolet.com/spark-ev-electric-vehicle.html The irony being that a car named Spark originally isn't electric, but only in certain markets.

Spark is somehow crucial in traditional car engines...

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#16

Post by honkhonkpants »

Retric wrote: post #12
honkhonkpants wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more! When I go on a car trip I want it to be a long way away, and a long way from any thing. That's why most electric cars can't be my only car, and I don't want two cars either. For someone like me a plug-in hybrid like the Volt makes a lot more sense because I can drive it ten hours out into the desert when I want to. The only reason we're reaching a tipping point in the American car market is becau…

Electric cars can do 800+ miles a day easily with sold charging infrastructure. Sure, if you want to do a cannon ball run rent a car, but 4 hours of driving, get lunch, another 4 hours of driving, take a 30 minute break, 2 hours of driving, dinner anther 4 hours of driving get some sleep. That's an extra 30 minute break for 14 hour road trip.

There's only one car that can go 4 hours on a charge, and that's the Tesla S. If you charge it for 30 minutes, it can go about another 2.5 hours.

My VW Golf TDI goes more than 750 miles on a tank at 65MPH. That's an entire days' driving for 5 minutes of fueling. Yes, the filthy Volkswageneers have to buy my car back, but it was certainly nice on the range.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#17

Post by kylec »

I was talking to my father a few weeks ago about electric cars, and I wanted to quantify how much going electric would save him so I ran some numbers. Where he lives gas is currently somewhere around $2.20/gallon. His car gets around 30mpg combined, so he's paying ~$0.073/mile.

Tesla's website contains a "charging estimator" for the Model S, which estimates a cost of $12.04 for a total charge of 300 miles in a 90D. In the fine print, they state that the calculation is based off of the assumption of $0.12/kWh cost for electricity, which works out to a total of 100kWh to fully charge a 90D to 300 miles of range. However, he pays far more than $0.12/kWh - he actually pays $0.22/kWh. This means that the fuel cost of the Model S for him is exactly the same: ~$0.073/mile.

I write this to say that I had always assumed that electricity was far cheaper than gasoline, and I was surprised when I ran the numbers and saw that it wasn't. It seems that articles like this assume that of course people will switch to electric cars in droves once the cars get cheap enough and the range is good enough, but unless electricity becomes cheaper or gas becomes more expensive, many people, like my father, will choose to continue to drive gas-powered cars.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#18

Post by hammock »

Retric wrote: post #12
honkhonkpants wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more! When I go on a car trip I want it to be a long way away, and a long way from any thing. That's why most electric cars can't be my only car, and I don't want two cars either. For someone like me a plug-in hybrid like the Volt makes a lot more sense because I can drive it ten hours out into the desert when I want to. The only reason we're reaching a tipping point in the American car market is becau…

Electric cars can do 800+ miles a day easily with sold charging infrastructure. Sure, if you want to do a cannon ball run rent a car, but 4 hours of driving, get lunch, another 4 hours of driving, take a 30 minute break, 2 hours of driving, dinner anther 4 hours of driving get some sleep. That's an extra 30 minute break for 14 hour road trip.

That's a lot of downtime. Most people I know, including myself, when doing a 14 hour roadtrip would stop as infrequently as possible, for a total of 30-60min over the course of the trip. And that figure is including pee break stops, which your calculation presumably didn't.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#19

Post by Twirrim »

dpweb wrote: post #3

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

Some 90% of journeys by vehicle are under 100 miles, well within the range distance of an electric car, a sizeable number of those being your daily commute.

The amount you save in gas money alone would easily pay for a gasoline rental for those occasions where you really do need more and can't possibly stand to wait for a recharge.

Alternatively things like the Chevy Volt exist which get you that interesting pairing of electric and gas generator (it recharges the battery using gasoline, which gets you away from the horribly inefficient variable speeds for combustible engines). The Electric motor will do you for 50something miles on a charge which still covers a good number of journeys, and with the full tank of gas you can get some 400 more miles out of it.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#20

Post by jschwartzi »

dpweb wrote: post #3

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

It will happen, eventually, though. It's starting with the affluent. Anyone who can afford a house with a garage is capable of buying a charger and having it installed. As that happens, charger prices go down and they get better. As more affluent people buy electric cars, they will also get cheaper and better. Unlike Hydrogen and Ethanol, electricity and batteries are well-known technologies that most people have been using for years.

By the time apartment dwellers start buying electric, gasoline automobiles will seem like quaint relics of the past.

The only problem is that electric cars won't do anything directly to mitigate global warming, because they will still be powered largely by fossil fuel.

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