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The Electric Car

blog.geoffralston.com

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Re: The Electric Car

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

philwelch wrote: post #4
swombat wrote: post #2

Interesting article, though it forgets the elephant in the room: self-driving cars. The two will probably work hand in hand, but it is unlikely, in my opinion, that any electric cars will be charging at home very much, because most electric cars will be owned by companies, not individuals. Why own a car when you can pay a tiny percentage of a cab fare to go anywhere? When a journey that currently costs $50 costs 20 c…

What if the self-driving electric cab gets soiled with the last passenger's bodily fluids?

It will probably have facilities for identifying that condition and either self-cleaning or notifying the central dispatch system that it needs to be taken out of the rotation until cleaned.

Pretty much the same thing as a human-driven cab.

Worst case, all those things fail, and a dirty cab shows up, and you reject it on the hailing app with an explanation of why, leading to some delay till you get the next available cab. Its not like unexpected failures and delays don't happen with personally owned and operated owner-driven vehicles.

Re: The Electric Car

#42

Post by rhino369 »

rickdale wrote: post #17

My big qualm with the electric cars that I don't read about is the 40minute-1hour charging. People complain that charging stations aren't near them, but the convenience of pulling into a gas station filling up and being ready for another 400 miles in less than 5 minutes is hard to beat. Even if the charging stations were all around, 5 versus 40-60 min is a big difference.

If you can get a car to go 200 miles and charge in 1 hour, at a price that is comparable to gasoline, that is probably good enough. Maybe some traveling salesmen wouldn't want it, but even people who take a lot of vacations would be okay. And it'll probably end the cross country road trips, but these actions are total outliers.

I've driven on semi long road trip vacations my whole life. Chicago to Hayward, Wi. A 400 mile trip almost exactly from my parents old house in the burbs.

You'd just take a break halfway and get dinner while the car charges. It's about 7 hours to go 400 miles including a gas stop, piss break and quick dinner. Just make it 7.5 hours and take a long dinner.

The extra 45 minutes charging time is really no big deal if you only have to do it every couple months.

Re: The Electric Car

#43

Post by rfrey »

JTon wrote: post #18

> The reason electric cars will take over our roads is because consumers will DEMAND them. Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy. The iPhone demonstrated that smartphones are infinitely better than the feature phones which dominated the world in 2007. The smartphone revolution analogy makes me cringe. Electric cars are currently playing catch up to the…

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.

Re: The Electric Car

#44

Post by soperj »

suprgeek wrote: post #22

Shell, Exxon, BP will pour massive lobby dollars to slow down the spread of electric cars. GM, Ford, Honda & Toyota (and the Dealer network) will get in on the lobbying action against electric cars when they see their current monopolies eroding. Comparing the spread of the Smartphone (digital device by definition) to the Spread of the Car (physical) and then extrapolating a best case future is wishful thinking.

Smartphones are physical. They exist in my hand.

Re: The Electric Car

#45

Post by danhak »

mikeyouse wrote: post #27
danhak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've driven more than a million miles fully autonomously Zero of those miles were at a speeds > 25 mph. And the cars have averaged > 1 accident per 100,000 miles.

I don't think this is accurate.. It was pretty common to pass the Lexus SUVs that Google was using for their autonomous platforms on the highway at speeds of 65+ MPH. I'm not sure if they're still around since my commute changed, but they were previously all over the Bay Area. I personally saw them on HWYs 101, 280, 880, and 92..

Are you sure the cars were not being driven by a human at those times?

Re: The Electric Car

#46

Post by beambot »

soperj wrote: post #35
rickdale wrote: post #17

My big qualm with the electric cars that I don't read about is the 40minute-1hour charging. People complain that charging stations aren't near them, but the convenience of pulling into a gas station filling up and being ready for another 400 miles in less than 5 minutes is hard to beat. Even if the charging stations were all around, 5 versus 40-60 min is a big difference.

There's no way you fill your car in 5 minutes, and Superchargers are noted to take 30 minutes, not 40-60.

It takes no more than 5 minutes from the moment I drive into a gas station to the moment I drive out to refill my Honda civic (10 gal). EPA dictates a maximum pump rate of 10 gal per minute [1].... so the actual pumping phase of fill-ups is just 1 minute for my car.

[1] http://www.epa.gov/OMS/regs/ld-hwy/evap/spitback.txt

Re: The Electric Car

#47

Post by cowsandmilk »

mahyarm wrote: post #19
sosuke wrote: post #7

We just need to add outlets everywhere. I'd love one, but I don't have a place to charge it.

The electric car is actually fairly inconvenient if you don't have a garage or a parking spot that you rent / cannot install an outlet on. The cycle time on vehicles is far higher than a cheap smartphone mainly due to their expense. And a large amount of the article's bullet points are not something that would be unique to an electric car. When you take public transit, as long as the train/bus isn't loud, would you c…

Boston has added hybrid buses to their fleet. They are much quieter. I'm a fan.

But I agree about the parking spaces. Even now in new construction, it is considered forward thinking to have 2 or 3 spaces with outlets out of 100. For the future of electric cars, they should at least have conduit to spaces where outlets could be installed.

Re: The Electric Car

#48

Post by Miner49er »

soperj wrote: post #35
rickdale wrote: post #17

My big qualm with the electric cars that I don't read about is the 40minute-1hour charging. People complain that charging stations aren't near them, but the convenience of pulling into a gas station filling up and being ready for another 400 miles in less than 5 minutes is hard to beat. Even if the charging stations were all around, 5 versus 40-60 min is a big difference.

There's no way you fill your car in 5 minutes, and Superchargers are noted to take 30 minutes, not 40-60.

How is there no way to fill a car in 5 minutes? I suppose I don't time myself, but it always seem to take between 3 and 8 minutes.

Re: The Electric Car

#49

Post by ahlatimer »

stellar678 wrote: post #36

While I'm all on-board for the importance and awesomeness of a wholesale transition to electric transportation, I think this essay leaves out some important considerations. The primary one that pops to mind for me: people replace their phones every 2-3 years. ( http://www.phonearena.com/news/Americans-replace-their-cell-... ) How often do people replace their car?

Just shy of 6 years for a new car: http://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/average-length-of...

Obviously a significant portion of those cars remain on the road, just with new drivers. As of 2012, the average age of cars on the road is 11 years: https://www.mainstreet.com/article/how-long-do-you-keep-car-...

Re: The Electric Car

#50

Post by callesgg »

A big problem is that battery's require lithium, which is quite rare(not supper rare but still rare enough for it to be a problem).

My prediction is that sales if electric cars wont become exponential until we get cheaper and greener battery technology.

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