To me the best parts of an electric car is that the power-train assembly is much simpler then with a gas powered one and it can be powered with pretty much any kind of energy... whatever feeds your home. and the downfall is of course the range.
The Electric Car
91–100 of 349 posts
Re: The Electric Car
#92The real story my be that car sales may decline, gas or electric: * People drive less; I saw a study showing that significantly fewer millenials are licensed to drive than their predecessors. * More people live in cities, where the cost of cars is higher (insurance and parking) and the demand for them is less due to the proximity of destinations and the availability of alternatives (public transport, taxis, ride-shar…
not sure if you meant "car miles" when you said sales, but another point:
* Cars are way more reliable than even 10-15 years ago. Growing up my parents had a rule of thumb that a car was a ticking bomb over 100k miles. Today, a car from a reputable manufacturer is just getting started at 100k.
I do think this has some interesting ramifications as the lifetime of a single car starts to increase - at a time when the tech in a car (e.g. driver assists/self-driving systems) is starting to iterate very rapidly.
Re: The Electric Car
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think electric cars win on every metric except range and refill/recharge time. They have better torque, better efficiency, lower emissions, lower noise, simpler drivetrains, and more reliable motors.
For refill time, note that most electric car owners do almost all of their charging in their own garages overnight... not something that's common for gas-powered cars. Long trips are worse for electric cars, sure. But day-to-day driving? Charging is not an issue if you can charge in your garage.
For those of us who live in apartment buildings and don't have a garage where we can install such things, then what?
To me this has always been the biggest obstacle of an electric car.
Re: The Electric Car
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people in the 2nd hand car market (like me) will quickly switch to electric. They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. Nearly all my cars die with head gasket issues, or oil leaks or timing belt issues. does quick count so that's 4 of my cars and 2 of my partners. Electric engines won't die like that. And when they do, just grab a used one from a junked car and off you go. With 'in wheel' electric motors, t…
True, but there's at least one really expensive component of electric cars that needs replacement every 8 to 10 years: the battery. I think the current price is about $10000 for the battery if you order from Tesla in advance. Maintenance and repair costs of a gasoline vehicle over 10 years can be less than that.
That's not a very good comparison, is it? After 10 years you'd have a nearly-new electric car (from a reliability/repair standpoint) but you'd have a gas car that was vastly more likely to break down and need costly repairs than when you first bought it.
Re: The Electric Car
#95"Ten years ago a prediction that this would be the future would have been met with scorn or laughter" ... this sounds like bollocks, I guess I am an outlier as I worked on J2me apps at the time, but mobile phones where everywhere in 2005, the US was a bit behind, but certainly in the UK mobile wasn't the future, but the present - many of those people used apps and games, they just didn't know what an 'app' was althou…
Specifically smartphones. The landscape for which in 2005 was absolutely abysmal. The iPhone was revolutionary in almost every way down to the silence switch and visual voicemail.
Re: The Electric Car
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always thought that the Google cars have driven 95%+ of their miles in Mountain View, CA where every single aspect of the roads have been digitized, tested and tweaked a million times over. If you stuck one of these cars in a brand new city, it wouldn't work nearly as well.
And the weather is nice 99% of the time. I'd like to see a Google self driving car work in the rain or snow.
You say this like people are good at driving in rain or snow.
They are not.
There is a reason for all of those pileup pictures whenever there is severe weather in the US.
Self-driving cars are going to be WAY better in bad weather than any human could ever be. They will be able to "see" in conditions that humans couldn't dream of. They will be able to control steering far better on slick surfaces. They will be able to respond to emergencies far faster.
I have said this before but it bears repeating, once we get self-driving cars, the insurance companies won't actually let you drive anymore.
Re: The Electric Car
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people in the 2nd hand car market (like me) will quickly switch to electric. They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. Nearly all my cars die with head gasket issues, or oil leaks or timing belt issues. does quick count so that's 4 of my cars and 2 of my partners. Electric engines won't die like that. And when they do, just grab a used one from a junked car and off you go. With 'in wheel' electric motors, t…
They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. I think you're ignoring the big problem, the battery. When that goes, it is a big deal to replace, and mucho expensive.
A battery is on the order of the same cost as fixing an automatic transmission (which basically all US cars have--most of the US can't drive a stick anymore).
And, in terms of labor, a battery is WAY easier to replace than a transmission.
Re: The Electric Car
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
For refill time, note that most electric car owners do almost all of their charging in their own garages overnight... not something that's common for gas-powered cars. Long trips are worse for electric cars, sure. But day-to-day driving? Charging is not an issue if you can charge in your garage.
For those of us who live in apartment buildings and don't have a garage where we can install such things, then what? To me this has always been the biggest obstacle of an electric car.
Wait to buy an electric car until it's convenient for you to charge it?
Re: The Electric Car
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. I think you're ignoring the big problem, the battery. When that goes, it is a big deal to replace, and mucho expensive.
A battery is on the order of the same cost as fixing an automatic transmission (which basically all US cars have--most of the US can't drive a stick anymore). And, in terms of labor, a battery is WAY easier to replace than a transmission.
There's an even bigger bonus that in ten years the battery pack will probably be cheaper and have a better range. So while the replacement may be expensive the car will be dramatically better afterwards.
Re: The Electric Car
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people in the 2nd hand car market (like me) will quickly switch to electric. They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. Nearly all my cars die with head gasket issues, or oil leaks or timing belt issues. does quick count so that's 4 of my cars and 2 of my partners. Electric engines won't die like that. And when they do, just grab a used one from a junked car and off you go. With 'in wheel' electric motors, t…
They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. I think you're ignoring the big problem, the battery. When that goes, it is a big deal to replace, and mucho expensive.
This, in my book, is an unknown. I though Tesla said batteries are getting better 10% a year / 18 months. And I'm sure replacing bad cells will be cheaper than the whole pack.
Someone smart will make a machine that will help me test good cells from bad. Someone else will be ripping good cells out of junked cars.
Someone else will be doing hire purchase on batteries - £200 a year, battery pack replaced every 2,000 charges? Something like that? Sounds fine to me.