131–140 of 271 posts
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The critical part that is playing its role as I understand is that DC motors and batteries are plenty available from decent manufacturers. Very soon, as I see articles around the web, there will be much better quality motors and batteries available across the country from brands say Yamaha or LG. Making the shell of a vehicle is not hard. ICEs have a ridiculously higher parts count compared to EVs. And not all EVs ha…
What's ICE?
This is something I realized recently. I am in India and the number of small manufacturers who are making electric people movers is very high. These are not high speed vehicles, they are below 40 KM/h speed as I see them, but the big shift is that hundreds of small companies around India are producing and maintaining small electric vehicles, mostly locally. The drivers charge them at home at night or during longer lu…
I don’t think I ever drove above 40kmh in an Indian city if I wasn’t off the expressway or whatever they are called in India. It’s the perfect solution for everyday life. Hopefully they become pervasive and help reduce air pollution dramatically.
Turned out that the low speed combined with short drives (it was a smallish island) was bad for the engine: the oil never really mixed well and had to be replaced much more often than expected for such low milage.
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It's very hard to make an electric scooter competitive with 150cc which is a mode of transport for probably a billion people. 150cc will be better, and cheaper no matter what you try. I researched the problem extensively when I worked in a number of companies working in the electric scooter space. Cheapest 150cc scooters sell for $500 — that's the price of a battery pack to make a scooter with comparable range to 150…
if you can get 150cc for 500 then i'm living in the wrong country. In london they are ideal.
It would be the most barebones scooter you can imagine, with motor making less than 10hp, body made from very thin metal, and it will rust to nothing in 5 years.
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So not true. The Ami from Citroen is going to be quite the thing in Europe: https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/citroen/ami Review from UK perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEKtOGmpVI
The only viable place for something like Ami is car sharing in my opinion. The thing is, car manufacturers have been doing this since long before Tesla. They make something that screams 'look, I'm a weird thing that resembles a car, because I'm electric'. And the general population just wouldn't buy them. And then Tesla came along and showed that you can actually make a car that is electric and that people would want…
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Cities probably should be filled with max 56kph tiny vehicles rather than max 249kph vehicles. Space is limited and standard cars take up a lot of it.
And shouldn't let in the massive SUVs/Light trucks that Americans love. When I was in Nice for a couple weeks, it became very apparent that small cars fit far more vehicles on the road, and it was definitely in greater proportion that the relative size to SUVs in america. Smaller cars can drive much closer together. Something about the size, but also if there's a lot of cars around, you can see through the windshield…
Love my e-up. Small cars can do so more than you think. My girlfriend and I just used it to drop our kid off in kindergarten and then go skiing. Am currently sitting in a tight supermarket parking space half way up a mountain- very easy in a cheap, small car.
The e-up is only cheap as long as you don't compare to other cars equal in size. VW is far behind in EVs for now sadly.
I don't know, the ID.3 looks competitive to me, it starts at £30K in the UK which is similar to most of the competition.
Norway was the first country where more than half of all new registered vehicles were electric in 2020. And if you look at the data, Norwegians pick EVs that look and drive like normal cars. https://www.statista.com/statistics/696530/ranking-of-electr... It's not like you can't buy the weird ones too. It's just that people don't seem to want to buy them. Maybe culture plays some role there, but I believe that there a…
- Norway is a rich country with high standard of living, people are used to drive "big" cars
– Northern climate and terrain with lot of mountains probably plays a role, capable AWDs are popular
- Low population density, plenty of space for cars, excluding small city centers
- Electric is cheap in Norway due to hydro
– Electric cars are "cheap" in Norway due to low tax & high GDPNorway was the first country where more than half of all new registered vehicles were electric in 2020. And if you look at the data, Norwegians pick EVs that look and drive like normal cars. https://www.statista.com/statistics/696530/ranking-of-electr... It's not like you can't buy the weird ones too. It's just that people don't seem to want to buy them. Maybe culture plays some role there, but I believe that there a…
Drivers in city traffic can't go fast, but they like to accelerate quickly. This means a big engine, which means a big car, which means more weight so the engine has to be even bigger to keep the car accelerating 0-30 quickly.
For EVs, the relationship between battery weight and acceleration isn't the same. A new tradeoff is now between batteries which store power for a lot of driving, versus batteries which release a lot of power quickly, to accelerate sharply. There's no reason there shouldn't be a new sweet spot of very light weird-looking cars which are only driven around cities, need to be charged a lot (but who cares if not making long journeys) but have good 'driving performance'.
I have a Renault Twizy. It's a tiny 2-seater car (one behind the other). It's so tiny that the battery is only 6kWh and thus you can only go for about 80km before needing a charge (which lasts 2h30). But I love it in fact. In my european city it's the best car to go around because you can park anywhere, it costs nothing to operate, and it's so much fun and quiet. Sadly it didn't take on, but other cars are starting t…
You can't really use them in the city, because you get stuck in traffic just like everybody else. Here, a bicycle or a scooter / moped is the way to go - or public transport.
You can't really use them on city speedways or circular roads, because you are too slow and hold everyone else up. And you can't use the cycle paths either. And motorways - just forget it.
The Twizy has the minimal speed, so you can at least use it around town. But the Citroen is completely useless. Maybe, if you could use the bus/taxi lanes, then maybe... but if everyone had one, then stuck in traffic again.
Norway was the first country where more than half of all new registered vehicles were electric in 2020. And if you look at the data, Norwegians pick EVs that look and drive like normal cars. https://www.statista.com/statistics/696530/ranking-of-electr... It's not like you can't buy the weird ones too. It's just that people don't seem to want to buy them. Maybe culture plays some role there, but I believe that there a…
There are probably multiple factors: - Norway is a rich country with high standard of living, people are used to drive "big" cars – Northern climate and terrain with lot of mountains probably plays a role, capable AWDs are popular - Low population density, plenty of space for cars, excluding small city centers - Electric is cheap in Norway due to hydro – Electric cars are "cheap" in Norway due to low tax & high GDP
EVs are, in fact, more popular in the cities. And Norwegian cities are not very welcoming to cars.