Electric Vehicles

[nate82]

43 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

The other option is to make everyone buy electric cars they can't afford to destroy the environment much faster by mining the heavy metals needed to produce batteries, and then subsequently blow out the existing electrical grid.

It's going great...

That isn't even the worst part about electric cars.  The current infrastructure would collapse in on itself if 20% of the population switched to electric cars.  There are not enough charging stations and we don't have enough nuclear plants to meet the demand.  Instead of paying high prices at the gas pump you will be paying higher prices for electricity that is if you are not in the middle of a blackout.

Electric cars are a good idea but we don't have the infrastructure nor the means to produce enough electricity to keep the electric cars going.  Since our current government has decided that nuclear bad but we can build wind and solar.  Wind and solar can not provide enough unless you are willing to also build more natural gas refineries but that is also not an option.  

[PlayerHader]

10 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Yes, but that decline doesn't really mean much - going from 9+% in June year over year to say 7% in July year over year still means stuff costs a ton more a full year after inflation started spiking.  Changes from the interest rate hikes won't be seen in inflation numbers for another few months, at which time the rest of the economy will be firmly entrenched in a progressively worse recession (we're already in a recession that will get worse).  The big rate hikes coming now are kind of like a fire department showing up to a kitchen fire and then proceeding to wait until the entire house is a raging inferno before starting to run the hose to the nearest hydrant, then proceed to extinguish the fire on a destroyed house and not turn the water off until they've flooded the rest of the homes in the neighborhood.

 

I read this all over the place and I'm confused what people are basing this on. I know we were surprised to have ended up with negative growth in Q1. What evidence is there that that will be repeated? I haven't seen any predictions of negative growth for Q2. The labor market still appears to be very strong (based on national numbers and local observation). I know consumer confidence is reportedly very low, but that hasn't been reflected in consumer spending to this point (from what I've read).

I'm not saying we aren't heading toward recession. But why do you think we are already there?

[owbc]

11 hours ago, nate82 said:

That isn't even the worst part about electric cars.  The current infrastructure would collapse in on itself if 20% of the population switched to electric cars.  There are not enough charging stations and we don't have enough nuclear plants to meet the demand.  Instead of paying high prices at the gas pump you will be paying higher prices for electricity that is if you are not in the middle of a blackout.

Electric cars are a good idea but we don't have the infrastructure nor the means to produce enough electricity to keep the electric cars going.  Since our current government has decided that nuclear bad but we can build wind and solar.  Wind and solar can not provide enough unless you are willing to also build more natural gas refineries but that is also not an option.  

I'm heavily pro-nuclear but it simply isn't possible to build another nuclear plant in the US unless there are massive regulatory changes. By the time you fight through the regulatory red tape and lawsuits it's extremely expensive and time consuming. Wind and solar are way cheaper and faster to bring online. 

The grid can handle way more electric cars than we currently have and there are plenty of ways to get around the demand issues. Demand-based electricity pricing would solve most of the problem. Look at the supply/demand curves that ERCOT has been posting the last few days. There is a TON of supply available in the middle of the night which could be used to charge electric cars. Currently I plug mine in at home and forget about it, but if they changed to demand-based pricing I would simply set a timer and have the charger turn on at midnight. 

The main underlying theme is that there's no hope for anyone to be proactive about any of this, so we'll wait for everyone to buy electric cars (which is clearly going to happen, because they are superior to ICE vehicles and the environmental impact is lower even when you account for the mining). Then the utilities will eventually react to whatever is happening, likely by doing the above. 

[wallus]

20 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Yes, but that decline doesn't really mean much - going from 9+% in June year over year to say 7% in July year over year still means stuff costs a ton more a full year after inflation started spiking.  

The other option is to make everyone buy electric cars they can't afford to destroy the environment much faster by mining the heavy metals needed to produce batteries, and then subsequently blow out the existing electrical grid.

It's going great...

Yes but hitting the peak is important as everything moves slowly and you have to start on a better trajectory. No one thinks inflation will suddenly go back to 2% overnight.

 

The EV stuff is interesting. No one cared about the environment impacts of creating ICE cars but suddenly now all of these conservatives care now? Also, the vast majority of charging for EVs is overnight when the grid has excess capacity. 

[homer]

I think EVs would only put a strain on the power grid if everyone tried to charge at the same time which would never happen because you don't need to charge them every day.

[nate82]

1 minute ago, homer said:

I think EVs would only put a strain on the power grid if everyone tried to charge at the same time which would never happen because you don't need to charge them every day.

You underestimate the power of idiots.  

[homer]

2 hours ago, nate82 said:

You underestimate the power of idiots.  

Maybe but I think there will be far more people that don't charge and run out of juice on the road than will re-charge after running to the store and back. Not to mention we're talking probably 10 and more likely 20 years from now. Technology may change by that point to more efficiency and longer run times.

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 7/15/2022 at 10:42 AM, homer said:

I think EVs would only put a strain on the power grid if everyone tried to charge at the same time which would never happen because you don't need to charge them every day.

When Tesla is pleading for people in Texas to only charge their EVs at night and not during peak demand, it's evidence that if people charge whenever they'd prefer to do on their own that the additional strain on the grid from charging EVs even at the limited % they are part of the overall auto fleet is a problem.  Dramatically increasing the % of EVs on the road would only make this much worse.  Part of that reason is the existing grid and power supply is strained to its limits at present, too.  That's not just in the US, it's happening in many developed countries as they've become steadily more reliant on renewables instead of excess generating capacity from nuclear/fossil fuels to support antiquated peak demand estimates that growing populations are easily able to exceed. 

And there's still a significant limitation with EVs on how far you can actually drive them before needing to take a significant chunk of time to recharge the battery, not to mention being held hostage to traveling where charging stations are available and actually functioning properly.  To me the next step would be for families/households in population centers who have multi-vehicle households to have an EV primarily for in-town local driving and keep an ICE vehicle for more flexibility with longer drives - particularly when not planning to return home to your garage charging station at night to take advantage of that coal-fired trickle charge during bedtime.

 

[GAME05]

There would have to be a system by which you charge people more for electricity use during peak times than otherwise.

Quite the luxury item to have a $70,000 vehicle you can pretty much only drive around town. And even if there were charging stations everywhere, I looked it up and if I were to drive home in a Tesla, I would spend longer just charging it up than it takes me to make the drive in a gas vehicle.

[LouisEly]

3 hours ago, GAME05 said:

Quite the luxury item to have a $70,000 vehicle you can pretty much only drive around town. And even if there were charging stations everywhere, I looked it up and if I were to drive home in a Tesla, I would spend longer just charging it up than it takes me to make the drive in a gas vehicle.

What % of trips that people take are longer than the average 200-mile real-world range on an EV?  And why couldn't people rent ICE cars for the few times a year they would have to take those trips?

It's also quite the luxury item to spend $5,000/year on gas driving 15,000-20,000 miles per year on top of $6,000-$10,000/year on vehicle payments.  Spend $1000/year on a rental car for the 2-3 long trips per year you take.

[nate82]

27 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

What % of trips that people take are longer than the average 200-mile real-world range on an EV?  And why couldn't people rent ICE cars for the few times a year they would have to take those trips?

It's also quite the luxury item to spend $5,000/year on gas driving 15,000-20,000 miles per year on top of $6,000-$10,000/year on vehicle payments.  Spend $1000/year on a rental car for the 2-3 long trips per year you take.

We as American's have been lucky enough to enjoy the freedom of movement.  I don't want to see that go anywhere anytime soon.  It is just not economical for what you are saying for the majority of the people.  Even with the higher gas prices now it is far more economical to keep an ICE car over getting an EV.  EV's need to extend their range by another 150-200 miles before they become economically viable for everyone.  Right now EV's are just niche vehicles.  

If I got a EV vehicle I would have to recharge almost every night as it would be about half the range of the EV just for me to go back and forth to work one day.  

[LouisEly]

30 minutes ago, nate82 said:

We as American's have been lucky enough to enjoy the freedom of movement.  I don't want to see that go anywhere anytime soon.  It is just not economical for what you are saying for the majority of the people.  Even with the higher gas prices now it is far more economical to keep an ICE car over getting an EV.  EV's need to extend their range by another 150-200 miles before they become economically viable for everyone.  Right now EV's are just niche vehicles.  

If I got a EV vehicle I would have to recharge almost every night as it would be about half the range of the EV just for me to go back and forth to work one day.  

This is simply not true.  The EV's that are coming to market in the next 2-3 years almost all have ranges well over 200 miles and real world ranges of 180+ miles.

Hell, gas tanks only get ~350 miles.  EV's aren't far behind that.  You just have to go out of your way to a gas station instead of conveniently charging at home.

[GAME05]

Middleton to Milwaukee is 184 miles round-trip, so if you take your EV I guess you just cross your fingers you don't get stuck in traffic. And it takes 10 hours to fully charge a Tesla at a charging station, or a whopping 3 miles of range per hour that you charge it from a regular outlet--so even staying overnight at grandma's house won't get you back home unless you unplug her dryer and run a dropcord from there. Certainly the vast majority of our trips are local, but we're also deciding on a whim to go on weekend trips or a ballgame, too. And last time I rented a car for a week it was sure more than $100.

 

 

[owbc]

21 hours ago, nate82 said:

We as American's have been lucky enough to enjoy the freedom of movement.  I don't want to see that go anywhere anytime soon.  It is just not economical for what you are saying for the majority of the people.  Even with the higher gas prices now it is far more economical to keep an ICE car over getting an EV.  EV's need to extend their range by another 150-200 miles before they become economically viable for everyone.  Right now EV's are just niche vehicles.  

If I got a EV vehicle I would have to recharge almost every night as it would be about half the range of the EV just for me to go back and forth to work one day.  

An EV is already practical for almost every 2-car household in this country. Nobody needs more than one ICE car. It takes 2 seconds to plug in once you have the charger installed. And of course the EVs are far and away superior cars to drive due to their lower center of gravity and faster acceleration. 

[LouisEly]

On 7/23/2022 at 1:09 PM, GAME05 said:

Middleton to Milwaukee is 184 miles round-trip, so if you take your EV I guess you just cross your fingers you don't get stuck in traffic. And it takes 10 hours to fully charge a Tesla at a charging station, or a whopping 3 miles of range per hour that you charge it from a regular outlet--so even staying overnight at grandma's house won't get you back home unless you unplug her dryer and run a dropcord from there. Certainly the vast majority of our trips are local, but we're also deciding on a whim to go on weekend trips or a ballgame, too. And last time I rented a car for a week it was sure more than $100.

 

 

If you would have read the articles I linked you would have saw that 180 miles is on the low end of range.  The Chevy Equinox, expected to be in the $30K's, is expected to have a range of around 300 miles.  The Audi Q4 eTron is 250 miles.  The Fisker Ocean 250 for the low end model, 350 for higher end models.  The Ford F-150 Lightning AWD version is 300 miles, the Chevy Silverado is expected to come in around 400 miles, the Ram 1500 up to 500 miles.

Now, cold-weather range may be less as the heater runs off of the battery.  To which I say, wear a jacket and gloves.

And who said rental cars cost $100?

(Mods - perhaps you should split the EV discussion into it's own separate thread)

[wallus]

On 7/23/2022 at 1:09 PM, GAME05 said:

Middleton to Milwaukee is 184 miles round-trip, so if you take your EV I guess you just cross your fingers you don't get stuck in traffic. 

EVs are vastly superior in a traffic jam versus ICE

[homer]

I split these posts off from the Investment Thread. 

homer

[homer]

Sort of related to this discussion:

https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2022/07/25/electric-lines-following-highways-could-boost-ev-use-rural-broadband/10061595002/

Quote

The systems could boost the adoption of electric vehicles in several ways including the placement of charging stations on interstate highways.  

"To fully support these vehicles," the NextGen study says, highways, the power grid, and communications will have to be fully aligned. 

 

[homer]

This article from Car and Driver gives an overview of every EV coming out in the next five years (some are concept and won't make it to market). Looks like every major car maker (and a few upstarts) are coming out with at least one EV.  Almost all of them have a range of 300 miles. Honda has committed to selling only EVs by 2040.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g29994375/future-electric-cars-trucks/

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

On 7/23/2022 at 1:09 PM, GAME05 said:

Middleton to Milwaukee is 184 miles round-trip, so if you take your EV I guess you just cross your fingers you don't get stuck in traffic. And it takes 10 hours to fully charge a Tesla at a charging station, or a whopping 3 miles of range per hour that you charge it from a regular outlet--so even staying overnight at grandma's house won't get you back home unless you unplug her dryer and run a dropcord from there. Certainly the vast majority of our trips are local, but we're also deciding on a whim to go on weekend trips or a ballgame, too. And last time I rented a car for a week it was sure more than $100.

Most of this is wildly untrue, sorry. First an EV thrives in a traffic jam. The lack of wind resistance and regenerative braking increases range by a lot. If you were to drive 100 miles in traffic, it'd take a lot less juice than driving that same 100 miles at 75mph.

Second, pretty much any dedicated public charger will charge an EV up to 80% in less than half an hour.

I have a Chevy Volt - 55 miles range electric, then uses a gas generator - and I really regret not moving to the full-EV Chevy Bolt because I was worried about range. It's simply not a problem 95% of the time and for that other 5%, we have another car to use in those situations.

I put gas in the Volt about once every two months. It'd be nice to be able to just skip over the filling station entirely instead.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Before anyone writes off an EV, I implore them to go find a model they like and test drive it. I can't see myself buying another ICE vehicle again unless it's another classic car. EVs are faster, smoother, and quieter than the equivalent ICE vehicle. From a daily driver standpoint, EVs are just better.

And I say this as someone who is an avid motorcyclist and loves the sound and feel of a performance ICE vehicle. But EVs are just better driving if I'm going from point A to point B, which is 90% of my driving.

[pitchleague]

Do they have manual transmission EV???  I'm serious, because I don't know.

 

[nate82]

Just now, pitchleague said:

Do they have manual transmission EV???  I'm serious, because I don't know.

 

Probably in Europe.  

[hawing]

7 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Most of this is wildly untrue, sorry. First an EV thrives in a traffic jam. The lack of wind resistance and regenerative braking increases range by a lot. If you were to drive 100 miles in traffic, it'd take a lot less juice than driving that same 100 miles at 75mph.

Second, pretty much any dedicated public charger will charge an EV up to 80% in less than half an hour.

I have a Chevy Volt - 55 miles range electric, then uses a gas generator - and I really regret not moving to the full-EV Chevy Bolt because I was worried about range. It's simply not a problem 95% of the time and for that other 5%, we have another car to use in those situations.

I put gas in the Volt about once every two months. It'd be nice to be able to just skip over the filling station entirely instead.

We've had a Prius since 2007 and have a Prius Prime on order.  The length of our ballpark trips (78 miles each way from home to the Molitor Lot!) was why we weren't sure about range - plus we're a one-vehicle household.  I rarely look forward to the MLB offseason, but if the car arrives by then, we should go quite a while between gas station visits.

[Brock Beauchamp]

59 minutes ago, pitchleague said:

Do they have manual transmission EV???  I'm serious, because I don't know.

No. Most EVs don’t have a conventional transmission with gears. I think the Porsche uses a two speed but other than that, AFAIK all EVs are direct drive to the wheels.