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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

#211

Post by goodcanadian »

magicalhippo wrote: post #145
m463 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 charges to 100% every time Ah, I hadn't picked up on this. My BMW i3 has a built-in buffer so what shows as 100% on the dash is actually about 80%, and similarly for 0% (I verified through the raw data). Doing true "0-100" definitely does not do the battery any favors.

The leaf also has a built in buffer like that though I don't know the exact numbers.

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

#212

Post by jjav »

reissbaker wrote: post #174
jjav wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Oh wow, 11kWh to go 26 miles...

Well that commute includes going up a 2000ft mountain pass so that part drains the battery pretty quick.

I'm sure the Fiat would get better range in flat land, but there isn't much flat land around here.

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

#213

Post by _ph_ »

Reason077 wrote: post #154
_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.

There is “force being applied” in the form of EU fleet-wide emissions requirements. Automakers must sell increasing numbers of full electric and/or hybrid vehicles in order to meet their emissions targets, otherwise they face potentially huge fines.

This can only force the auto makers to make electric cars attractive, but the customer does have a choice and chooses more electric cars.

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

#214

Post by Ma8ee »

adrianN wrote: post #127
dawnerd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A powerwall has what, 12ish KW usable (less in reality) which a single one can power a house for for up to a day if you're careful about what you're using. If you scale that up to the 75KW+ batteries being put into EVs today buying an inverter could be a good investment if you live in an area with frequent power outages (or a cabin or whatnot). There was also some talk about Teslas being able to send power back to th…

My two person household uses maybe two kWh per day.

I find that very unlikely if you have any appliances at all. Multiple it by ten and I might start to believe you. For reference, right now we, granted in a four person household and electric heating in the coldest winter month, are using around 100 kWh per day. Even when the house is unoccupied in the summer the consumption is around 3.5 kWh per day. That is probably mostly just a fridge and two freezers.

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

#215

Post by tomp »

WanderPanda wrote: post #205
kstenerud wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autocracies are only short-term efficient. Once their initial aims are met, they become terribly inefficient, then corruption sets in, and then they must be forcibly removed. It's good for other nations who can benefit from their trailblazing, but bad for the nation itself because they're basically fucked in the future when the bill comes due. Centralization is long-term the worst kind of governance, inevitably becom…

I absolutely agree! I am just really struggling to put a time estimate on when the bill will come due for china. I think they can be in an upward trend for some more years as a technological follower. What I mean by that is that they use simple metrics of current technology (Ghz, GB, battery life, screen colors, electric car range and so in) and just “mandate” to get better in them. But all these things will eventual…

> At least in my (very narrow) experience I have not seen much evidence for qualitative innovation in china

This argument never sounded very true and intellectually honest to me. I mean, I want to believe in it, but when I scrutinize it precisely, I wonder - how can you measure the ability to innovate of someone who doesn't want (or need) to innovate?

At present time, China's competitive advantage is cheap specialized labour, and they're taking full advantage of that - as they should. That's the whole point of being behind in technology and racing to catc up! It might very well be that when they switch their focus, from copying to innovating, they'd be very good at that as well (or very bad! we literally have very little data to tell)

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

#216

Post by reissbaker »

olivermarks wrote: post #73
reissbaker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can, actually. I'm not sure where you're getting your info from, but you can buy home solar panels from Tesla that can easily recharge an EV.

Needs 7-9 panels approx 5ft x 3ft. A roof array might work but a backyard is ambitious unless you're on flat land and facing south west https://news.energysage.com/how-many-panels-do-you-need-for-...

The article is citing needing 6-8 panels between 320-330 watts to charge a Tesla Model S; 8 if you live in the northeast United States (it's not backyard orientation, it's about where you live geographically), 6 if you live in the southwest United States. The "small" Tesla panel arrays that I mentioned are 4.08 kilowatts [1], which is more than enough even in the northeast to charge a Model S, or any EV. They take up 240sqft, which would fit in most backyards, although a roof mount would of course be preferable both because it'll get less shade and because it won't take up backyard space, unless you have a lot of open backyard space away from any existing structures.

Really. There's a reason Tesla sells solar panels, and it's because they can charge the cars Tesla makes. They can also lower your electric bills (or drop them to zero, or make you money depending on the region you live in), since even the smallest panel array they sell produces more electricity than an average American driver needs per year for an EV.

1: https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/solar-panels/going-sola...

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

#218

Post by dfgdghdf »

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.

Efficient to what end? The whole purpose of representative democracy is that we disagree on what we are trying to achieve, but still need to have a somewhat coherent plan. Autocracies are "efficient" only in the sense that they skip a bulk of the work.

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

#219

Post by overscore »

gnicholas wrote: post #134
overscore wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would it be illegal to store petrol? It might be unwise if you live in an apartment, but illegal?

Apparently all over? > CPSC also warns consumers that private storage of more than a limited amount of gasoline (usually five gallons or less) is illegal in many areas, and subsequent fire damage may not be covered by insurance policies. from https://www.cpsc.gov/zhT-CN/node/21151

That article (from 1979) indicates that the only legal restriction is that it must be dispensed into an approved container.

More recent advice from the API indicates that fire codes usually restrict the storage of more than 25 gallons (~95 L) at home. Many people in rural areas would have orders of magnitude more than that.

So it seems that, in the US at least, it's not illegal all over.

API Source: https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas/consumer-information...

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

#220

Post by fy20 »

dawnerd wrote: post #93
r00fus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An EV inverter for $200 can allow your car to power your refrigerator + router/phone/laptops for many hours (days for a LR Tesla).

A powerwall has what, 12ish KW usable (less in reality) which a single one can power a house for for up to a day if you're careful about what you're using. If you scale that up to the 75KW+ batteries being put into EVs today buying an inverter could be a good investment if you live in an area with frequent power outages (or a cabin or whatnot). There was also some talk about Teslas being able to send power back to th…

Nissan LEAFs (since the first generation I think) have had the tech built into the car to support this, but so far the corresponding hardware to connect it to the grid hasn't been available outside Japan. In the UK trials are starting for it now:

https://youtu.be/kl9_cWF7fXo

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