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How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

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Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#151

Post by felixlechat »

mywittyname wrote: post #101
grandalf wrote: post #58

When you buy a car in the US, most of what you pay for is fancy molded plastic and attractive sheet metal work, cleverly organized by the manufacturer into trim level "tiers" intended to create maximum perceived value. The package is then financed or leased with incentive financing and the sights are set on getting you to replace it after 2-4 years whether it needs to be replaced or not. I think a 6 passenger mini-va…

This isn't really possible to produce a sub $8k, even with an "open" platform. The reason I know this is because the VW Minibus, which was engineered in the 40s has been sold in Brazil from 1953-2013 with very little change. Want to know how much a brand new van designed 60 years ago would cost you? $18,000 USD. That's a vehicle whose engineering and equipment was paid for decades ago, that received numerous exemptio…

We have super cheap car in Europe which cost much less (see Dacia). And for exemple, Renault is selling a 3500€ car in India (https://www.renault.co.in/vehicles/personal-cars/kwid.html). As a note, this same auto manufacturer is leader of electric car in Europe with Renault Zoe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe), even if sells are disapointing due to poor autonomy.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#152

Post by rimantas »

stcredzero wrote: post #127
JshWright wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing 'size' gets you is crumple zones. A bigger vehicle has a lot more material that can be engineered to deform and absorb the energy of the impact, spreading the deceleration over a longer period of time. A small car can be designed to prevent intrusion into the passenger compartment, but it can't do anything about the g-forces of the collision (which can seriously ruin your day...).

The thing 'size' gets you is crumple zones. A bigger vehicle has a lot more material that can be engineered to deform and absorb the energy of the impact Not the only thing. Recall your high school physics. Crank through the basic motion equations for inelastic equations. The more massive object experiences less change in momentum. All things being equal, passengers of the more massive vehicle are going to experience…

g-force depends on acceleration (or in this case, deceleration) by definition. Deceleration is change in speed over time for it to occur. The whole purpose of the crumple zones is to maximize that time and thus reducing g-force.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#153

Post by mywittyname »

felixlechat wrote: post #151
mywittyname wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really possible to produce a sub $8k, even with an "open" platform. The reason I know this is because the VW Minibus, which was engineered in the 40s has been sold in Brazil from 1953-2013 with very little change. Want to know how much a brand new van designed 60 years ago would cost you? $18,000 USD. That's a vehicle whose engineering and equipment was paid for decades ago, that received numerous exemptio…

We have super cheap car in Europe which cost much less (see Dacia). And for exemple, Renault is selling a 3500€ car in India ( https://www.renault.co.in/vehicles/personal-cars/kwid.html ). As a note, this same auto manufacturer is leader of electric car in Europe with Renault Zoe ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe ), even if sells are disapointing due to poor autonomy.

Yes, but that's a compact car, not a van.

The Renault Lodgy is more a more appropriate comparison and it starts around 9 lakh ($13500/12000€)in India. Which is still substantially more than our $8k target price.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#154

Post by dv_dt »

S_A_P wrote: post #43
pmontra wrote: post #13

A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas…

I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size can equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one h…

This seems like relevant data. Particularly the "Driver deaths per million registered passenger vehicles" broken down by size in larger categories of car, pickup, SUV. Though I think they mix the data a bit w.r.t the contribution of mass vs volume.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...

It seems like if you are in an accident, an SUV as a class is indeed safer (but not necessarily the largest SUV interestingly enough). But the other thing that this data doesn't seem to say is if one class of vehicle has a higher accident rate than another. Without that it's difficult to say for sure if one is safer driving around one type of vehicle or another.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#155

Post by felixlechat »

mywittyname wrote: post #153
felixlechat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have super cheap car in Europe which cost much less (see Dacia). And for exemple, Renault is selling a 3500€ car in India ( https://www.renault.co.in/vehicles/personal-cars/kwid.html ). As a note, this same auto manufacturer is leader of electric car in Europe with Renault Zoe ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe ), even if sells are disapointing due to poor autonomy.

Yes, but that's a compact car, not a van. The Renault Lodgy is more a more appropriate comparison and it starts around 9 lakh ($13500/12000€)in India. Which is still substantially more than our $8k target price.

Right, but I can imagine Renault doing a van on the same basis. From 4000$(3500€) to 8000$ is a huge gap for changing only the auto body. It is also funny to see that Dacia Lodgy is more expensive in India than here in France with more regulation where it cost 9900€ (http://www.dacia.fr/gamme-dacia/lodgy/), closer to your target price.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#157

Post by woodpanel »

PinguTS wrote: post #5

This article has lots of false assumptions. To phrase it positively, the article ignores a lot of facts. EVs are simpler devices than gasoline-powered vehicles. They have a smaller number of parts, making them easier to assemble. At similar scale to gas vehicles, electric vehicles should indeed be lower cost to built. In addition, EVs have many fewer moving parts (in the engine and drivetrain in particular) than inte…

This article has lots of false assumptions. I agree.

In fact, this article is so preconcieved reading it's last sentence felt like: 'scrolling, scrolling to continue reading after the ads... aaaand... where is the reasoning-part and the criterion-part of this piece?'

Considering the article's lack of substance and the subsequent unquestioning cheering here on HN, this article delivers less enlightenment on the future of EV than it is a statement about the bias on HN towards EV. And probably about the bias in the valley as well.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#159

Post by dragontamer »

PinguTS wrote: post #5

This article has lots of false assumptions. To phrase it positively, the article ignores a lot of facts. EVs are simpler devices than gasoline-powered vehicles. They have a smaller number of parts, making them easier to assemble. At similar scale to gas vehicles, electric vehicles should indeed be lower cost to built. In addition, EVs have many fewer moving parts (in the engine and drivetrain in particular) than inte…

> That neglects the fact, that most of the maintenance costs are not engine related. Like the brakes have to be regularly checked. It neglects the fact, that a battery will wear out sometimes between 3 to 6 years and has to be replaced, which is a huge cost related issue. The guarantee Tesla has, does not help, because you will pay for that guarantee otherwise.

It seems like the battery management of Tesla is pretty good. I'd imagine 10-year to 15-year replacement of battery packs... which is still far more expensive and costly than a transmission rework (ie: a 150k to 200k Camry).

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#160

Post by Unklejoe »

hvidgaard wrote: post #145
Unklejoe wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

{Combustion engines are steadily increasing in technology too, due to emissions laws.} 100. If you ask me, it has reached the point of diminishing returns too (with respect to gains achieved vs added complexity). Take direct injection for example. It provides marginal gains in efficiency, but with that comes a ton of added complexity and side effects. Now you have to get your intake vales cleaned every 60k because th…

> It provides marginal gains in efficiency Some automakers claim 15% increased efficiency and 50% increased low end torque. That is not marginal.

There is absolutely no way you will achieve a 50% increase in torque (at any RPM) just by switching from ordinary port injection to direct injection. Do you have any references to this claim?

The efficiency improvements are possible, mainly due to the better atomization of the fuel, but 15% seems pretty generous if we're talking about improvements from DI alone. Keep in mind that many manufacturers are adopting multiple new technologies at the same time they're switching to DI. Newer engines with DI also tend to come with wideband o2 sensors and more modern ECUs, both of which can lead to improvements in efficiency which makes it harder to determine the true contribution of DI.

There's only one possible explanation for the 50% torque improvement claim:

Many cars are switching from larger naturally aspirated port-injected engines to smaller turbocharged direct-injected engines. Maybe that's what they were talking about.

Going from a naturally aspirated port-injected 3.8 liter V6 that makes 300HP and 280 TQ to a turbocharged direct-injected 1.8 liter 4 cylinder that makes 300HP and 350 TQ could very well explain those figures, but it's the turbocharger and smaller engine that are really the key here.

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