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Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

theguardian.com

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Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#171

Post by Tade0 »

CameronNemo wrote: post #14
sircastor wrote: post #10

I’ll be interested to see the lifespan of EVs for “normal” people. I’ve got a 2012 Nissan LEAF we bought post-lease in 2015. I love it still, and don’t have any plans to replace it. The battery is not in great shape, but it gets me where I need to go. I am genuinely considering replacing the battery rather than buying another EV when the battery finally fails.

Maybe the replacement battery will have better tech!

I could, because the 2nd generation Leaf was more of a facelift and the newer, 40kWh battery snaps right into place.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#172

Post by clouddrover »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #131
clouddrover wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car companies must meet the EU fleet emissions standards and the only way most car companies will achieve that is by selling BEVs. Volkswagen and Renault are the top two BEV makers in Europe. Toyota is in a good position with their fleet emissions because they've been selling hybrids for so long. They're not under as much pressure to start selling BEVs in high volumes.

It looks to me that Toyota has thrown away a huge advantage. Thet could have had an early lead with their experience with hybrids.

It probably won't matter that much. Toyota will start offering BEVs in large volumes eventually. They'll be Toyotas with a different powertrain.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#173

Post by eigenvector »

cbhl wrote: post #51
angmarsbane wrote: post #17

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

Wikipedia says the 2000-01 California energy crisis was caused by Enron. I believe it will take years of engineering-driven investment (upgrade lines; trim trees; clear flammables from the transmission corridors) to make power reliable in California again, but the California energy companies are bankrupt (again?) after judgments in recent years' wildfires. I believe the reliability problem is worst in California and…

Nothing inherent to cell phone networks causes them to go down during power outages. Just like POTS they need a backup power supply for their infrastructure to remain functional when the power grid is down. Usually this takes the form of diesel generators.

The main difference is that the cell network doesn't power the handset but modern cell phones use so little power than a $50 consumer UPS would recharge a cell phone many times over.

Keeping phone networks up during power outages is very important for public safety.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#174

Post by reissbaker »

jjav wrote: post #135
reissbaker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an EV. After I drive it home, I plug it in. Except when I'm lazy, it's basically never below a couple hundred miles of range remaining. Rolling blackouts wouldn't really cause an issue, and when I've experienced blackouts, it's never been a problem. When the power is on, the car would charge back to the limit I set (I usually keep it at 80% charged to preserve the battery, which is still nearly 250 miles of ra…

> And electricity is much cheaper than gas. Maybe. When I was commuting, my daily driver gas car got 36 MPG. My commute used 0.72 gallons. At $3.55/gallon, the trip cost $2.56 or about 9.9 cents/mile. At the same time I had a Fiat 500e. The same commute consumed 11kWh. So the breakeven point (between my two cars) is $0.24/kWh in electric cost. Looking at my PG&E bill, peak time (4pm-9pm) cost is $0.35/kWh and part-pe…

Oh wow, 11kWh to go 26 miles... I guess it depends heavily on the car, then. The Tesla Model 3 (the car I own) gets a little better than 4 miles per kWh, which would mean the trip would take around 6kWh — so about half the cost, making it cheaper than gas even at California electricity prices.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#175

Post by dagurp »

Reason077 wrote: post #158
throwawayzRUU6f wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first and second paragraph contradict each other. Even though Toyota doesn't offer a single BEV in their lineup, they are completely fine with the stricter emission standards. Nobody is forcing anyone to sell BEVs, what is forced is efficiency. Full BEV is only one way to achieve that goal. Look at Hyundai Ioniq hybrid - a perfectly capable midsize family car, affordable, introduced to the market in 2017. It wil…

Toyota now sells the full-electric Lexus UX 300e in Europe, so it’s no longer true that they “don’t offer a single BEV”.

The specs of that car suggest that they want it to fail. It's not competitive to the EVs out there and is too expensive.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#176

Post by neuronic »

konschubert wrote: post #147
_ph_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric car sales are up in Germany by similar amounts. Completely without any force applied. The same in many European countries.

To be fair there are heavy subsidies for electric cars in Germany.

They existed years ago and I am skeptical that they are significant enough to make the average person even consider a new electric car. They are still too expensive for what they offer, even with heavy subsidies.

However, what I do see in Germany, are more and more electric cars in car sharing, rentals and company fleets. Upper middle class is going pretty electric as well to appear cool/caring about climate. Several Teslas in front of my building now since the new upper middle class apartments went up across the street. Several Audi e-Trons in the area as well. What's curiously missing is the ID.3 somehow - I expected to see many more at this point.

Volkswagen and many other well-known manufacturers are pushing out really decent electric models. I see a ton of Renault Zoes cruising around, electric Smarts as well. They simply fit well into the European market which is dominated by dense cities and short commutes (<100km).

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#177

Post by swarnie_ »

missedthecue wrote: post #110
theshrike79 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a country lead by engineers with unlimited power to do whatever they want. If they want all cars to be electric, that will happen. If they want a 5 million person city just there because it's logistically advantageous, then that will happen. The good thing is that they can make decisions like this. The bad thing is that they can make decisions like this.

Autocracies seem to be the most efficient form of governance. It's a shame that this also means that they can do evil things very efficiently, given no one can stop them.

"Democracies" are perfectly capable of doing evil things very efficiently as well.

Lets not pretend the last 70 years have been all sunshine and roses with democracy being spread by force around the world.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#178

Post by theshrike79 »

m463 wrote: post #126
magicalhippo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the main problem with the Leaf battery is that it doesn't have active thermal management[1]. I guess it's possible one could make a replacement battery pack which has an internal cooling loop, but it would be quite limited in how much heat it could get rid of through the battery case body without external radiators. Of course better batteries might heat up less when used or charged, due to lower internal resist…

ha, not really. The main problem(s) with the leaf are - it charges to 100% every time (unless you dig into a menu, turn on analytics and switch to 80%) I never knew a leaf driver that figured this out. - the battery size is very small, so you need a full charge to get anywhere reliably and/or drain it very low. - to put any kind of mileage on the car, you need to cycle the battery MANY times. (one cycle might be a da…

It also suffers from rapidgate and coldgate both.

Either the battery heats up too much during driving to accept proper charge (no thermal management). Or it's too cold to accept charge (no heating).

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#179

Post by ekzy »

I need a new car but I am put off by the range and charging infrastructure of EV. I haven’t looked into it properly yet but I’m surprised there’s not much more good hybrid cars on the market, sounds like a great compromise on the paper. What’s the catch?

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#180

Post by uncledave »

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #123
theshrike79 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only cars having actual battery issues so far are older Leafs (shit thermal management for the battery) and Priuses (they're just old). No other EV has had major battery issues yet, so there really hasn't been time to develop a viable 3rd party battery replacement industry. Even the actual car manufacturers tend to quote insane prices for full battery replacements because they really don't have a process in place…

"just old" applies to the battery technology used when they were built. Not to "a car" in general. It is totally uneconomic to scrap a car only because one part broke. I own a car from 1978 that is in very good shape (for some minimal maintenance cost, you should not just let it rot).

There will be a third party battery and retrofit industry when enough people have them.
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