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All the arguments against EVs are wrong

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Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#91

Post by sowbug »

revertmean wrote: post #15
sowbug wrote: post #9

I've been going in range-anxiety circles with my dad for over 10 years. He insists he needs a car that can take him hundreds of miles into the wilderness for camping. I ask whether he's ever done that. He says no, but he intends to. He's 84. EV manufacturers should offer the 500-mile-range vehicle, but as an option. Pay $X for a car with 250 miles range, and an extra $20,000 for another 250 miles range. Most people w…

To be honest, I think I would just let this one go. Does your father, at 84, really need a new car anyway?

Believe me, I'd love to talk with my dad about something else. But if it's not the 1950s, getting a new car, or what my mom is most recently wrong about, he's not interested.

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#92

Post by mcculley »

the_third_wave wrote: post #90
mcculley wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read Tesla owners reporting the AC consuming 1-3 kW. I still don't see how a roof of solar panels "goes a long way in offsetting the power consumed by the AC".

400W to 600W is 40% to 60% of that 1kW you mentioned, that is "a long way" as far as I'm concerned. An AC with a COP of 4.5 - a common rating - will be able to remove 1.8kW to 2.7kW of heating power from the vehicle using just solar power. Put it another way, a 20% efficient PV panel covering most of the vehicle combined with an AC with a COP of 5 should theoretically enable you to negate the total solar irradiance.…

I agree that if one assumes the most optimal theoretical possibilities, it would be great.

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#93

Post by theshrike79 »

jmclnx wrote: post #24

For warm climates in urban areas, I can agree, but here are things never fully covered anywhere: 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. Granted maybe EV stop power usage in this case. But under very hot or cold wea…

> 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot.

Scandinavia here.

I've owned gasoline powered cars, I've owned diesels, I've owned hybrids (Priuses) and cars with additional fuel heaters.

My current EV absolutely demolishes every single one of those in the speed of heating up the cabin. It got down to -30C a few winters ago and I had to drop off my kid at school so that their face wouldn't freeze solid (we don't do "snow days" here). I actually timed it, ~2 minutes from a weekend-long -30C weather to 20 degree air blowing into the cabin. The only ones that got close were the fuel heater (8kW heating power, no emissions standards applied btw) and Priuses.

Yes, it takes a bunch of electricity to heat up the cabin at first, but the upkeep is a few kWh using the heat pump.

Also: My EV has _never_ failed to start in the winter, no matter what the situation. All of the above (except for the Priuses) have failed or given me extra heart palpitations during colder days.

> 2. Stuck in traffic.

I know people first hand who have _literally_ camped in their EVs multiple times. 5-10C outside, car keeping itself at a comfy 20-22C and the battery drain is negligible. Heat pumps with high COP are fun!

Unless you get in a China-style 10 day traffic jam[0], you'll be just fine. Better than people in ICEs.

> 3. Battery recycling and disposal.

Do you know why we don't have a multi-million battery recycling industry? Because the damn things won't break. Decade-old Teslas and even Leafs with their completely botched thermal management are still mostly (>90%) running on OG batteries.

And even if an EV battery is too degraded to be practical in a car, a 100kW battery that's degraded to 50% capacity is still a 50kW battery. That's enough to run a _house_ for a few days or a small cabin for weeks.

Remember the Three R's of recycling: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Very few batteries will get to the last R where they are actually broken down to their base metals.

> 4. Old EVs may need battery replacement

Old cars tend to need expensive repairs, the difference is that an EV has less moving parts to break. The only big thing is the battery, but that tech is moving too fast to make any kinds of predictions.

It's possible _today_ to get an old Leaf battery swapped for one with 50% more capacity than the old one.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_tra...

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#94

Post by theshrike79 »

_hypx wrote: post #88
jmclnx wrote: post #24

For warm climates in urban areas, I can agree, but here are things never fully covered anywhere: 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. Granted maybe EV stop power usage in this case. But under very hot or cold wea…

It should be a huge motivation for hydrogen cars, which are also EVs but without such weaknesses in cold weather. It is very unfortunate that the article just dismisses this idea with just one sentence and zero explanation.

I'm still waiting for the first independent winter test of any hydrogen car. There are a bunch of "tests" where a car manufacturer has invited journalists to drive cars in the north, but the cars are always pre-warmed by the company.

The fuel cell does NOT want to freeze, it can actually physically break if it goes under 0C.

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#95

Post by theshrike79 »

justinator wrote: post #12

They didn't touch upon tire/rubber particulate pollution being worse for EVs.

The problem started when multi-ton SUVs became the norm. It's not an EV problem, it's a "heavy car problem".

A heavy EV doesn't spew the other crap in the air, so the total is still less than an SUV :)

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#96

Post by theshrike79 »

oblio wrote: post #57
charcircuit wrote: post #49

How about on this one: Gasoline has a higher energy density than lithium ion batteries meaning that you will have less weight to carry around giving you a more nimble vehicle. It also lets you accelerate faster from the same engine torque since you have to accelerate less mass. With electric vehicles you have to carry a battery for you entire range and it is not easy to swap out.

That's partly balanced out by the greater engine efficiency, 90-95% versus 30-35-40%. Also regenerative braking. Oh, and much better engine efficiency at low speeds.

No gasoline engine has 35% or better efficiency. I think the Toyota Hybrids hover around 30%.

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#97

Post by _hypx »

theshrike79 wrote: post #94
_hypx wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be a huge motivation for hydrogen cars, which are also EVs but without such weaknesses in cold weather. It is very unfortunate that the article just dismisses this idea with just one sentence and zero explanation.

I'm still waiting for the first independent winter test of any hydrogen car. There are a bunch of "tests" where a car manufacturer has invited journalists to drive cars in the north, but the cars are always pre-warmed by the company. The fuel cell does NOT want to freeze, it can actually physically break if it goes under 0C.

That has already happened with buses. There is much less range loss compared to battery buses: https://www.sustainable-bus.com/news/the-effect-of-cold-weat...

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#98

Post by _hypx »

slg wrote: post #50
sowbug wrote: post #9

I've been going in range-anxiety circles with my dad for over 10 years. He insists he needs a car that can take him hundreds of miles into the wilderness for camping. I ask whether he's ever done that. He says no, but he intends to. He's 84. EV manufacturers should offer the 500-mile-range vehicle, but as an option. Pay $X for a car with 250 miles range, and an extra $20,000 for another 250 miles range. Most people w…

>drive 8 hours without a pee break is and always will be aspirational. Which is why I think that once you get to a range of around 300 miles, the most important metric shifts from range to charge rate. None of us should probably be driving for more than 4 hours straight. But we also don't need those breaks to be an hour long. If we can get to the point in which 10-15 minutes of charging gives us 4+ hours of driving,…

Which is what hydrogen cars offer. An EV with very fast refueling.

What people are missing is that there is no reason that all cars must be battery powered. It's a weird myopia that is antithetical to Silicon Valley thinking, despite being widespread in SV.

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#99

Post by theshrike79 »

sebow wrote: post #37

Here's the biggest and most important reason (besides the obvious ones like grids, energy, etc.): most people >cannot Idealists should often take their heads out of their asses and understand most people don't have their privilege, ironically the most privileged ones screech about privilege while ignoring their own. Go ahead and tell developing countries to switch to EV-only, setting them back at least 10 years in te…

What people forget in these calculations is that many (not all) countries can produce the electricity for EVs themselves.

Very few countries can produce gasoline and diesel in-house so to speak. The actual raw oil needs to be bought from a dictator somewhere (or Norway), processed by a company that takes their cut and transported all the way to their country + distributed everywhere, every step adds more cost and most of the money doesn't end up in the country buying the gasoline/diesel.

You can make electricity anywhere and it's not that hard to store on a small scale and the people moving the electrons pay taxes to your country, as do the companies employing them. Less money going abroad, more staying in the country is good for everyone except oil companies.

---

I, for one, can afford my EV because I can offset my loan payment from the money I save from not having to spend around 200€/month on gasoline (it's ~2€/litre here). Instead I charge it at home with electricity that has cost 0-10c/kWh for the last few months. I went from 10€/100km to ~1,5-2€/100km in driving costs.

With a bit of code (or a service like Gridio), I can optimise that to only charge the car when the electricity is the cheapest.

And I live in an apartment building.

Re: All the arguments against EVs are wrong

#100

Post by slg »

_hypx wrote: post #98
slg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>drive 8 hours without a pee break is and always will be aspirational. Which is why I think that once you get to a range of around 300 miles, the most important metric shifts from range to charge rate. None of us should probably be driving for more than 4 hours straight. But we also don't need those breaks to be an hour long. If we can get to the point in which 10-15 minutes of charging gives us 4+ hours of driving,…

Which is what hydrogen cars offer. An EV with very fast refueling. What people are missing is that there is no reason that all cars must be battery powered. It's a weird myopia that is antithetical to Silicon Valley thinking, despite being widespread in SV.

Because hydrogen cars are less efficient, more expensive, more dangerous, and require more infrastructure than EVs. The speed of refueling isn’t enough of a justification to pursue hydrogen cars. They only really make sense if the raw materials for batteries become too scarce.
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