Everyone here will complain, but as a very happy hybrid owner, I say good. I’d like an all electric, but current battery tech and places to charge them for people who don’t live in a house just can’t be ready in the next 6 years.
Fixing them after a crash is way more expensive or they just get totaled out. They weigh a lot more. If you have a battery problem past 100,000 miles it costs way too much to replace the battery on your own. A 300 mile range ev will only go like 220 in cold weather. The 8 year 100k warranty on batts just needs to still have barely over 2/3 capacity to not be covered.
In a country like the US where people have to drive so far to get many places, trying to force EV so quickly when we still need better battery tech and a better form of regulation on how much charging stations cost there’s just too much to work on that quickly. EV’s sold today will not stay road worthy as long as a hybrid can. Hybrids still reduce pollution by a decent amount, weigh less, and due to putting much less strain on the ice and transmission will often be capable of going over 300,000 miles before a major component fails. When the battery inevitably goes bad they’re much easier and lighter and cheaper to replace. When an all EV that’s 15 years old has a bad battery its just getting thrown away. The literal millions of people who have to rely on buying older vehicles used for under $10,000 to get by would essentially completely dry up in an all ev country unless they risk becoming the bagholder of one with an old battery that could suddenly fail that would cost them much more than the price they paid for the vehicle just to replace.
I can’t wait for the EV future and even work for a manufacturer building them… But this post is the reality in the US market right now.
The cars are too expensive, the charging infrastructure is not there for people living in apartments (which at least where I live, accounts for the majority of new housing construction), our local power grid is already sagging because we haven’t built a power plant in decades… And a significant amount of people have commutes totaling or exceeding 80mi (round trip) because the jobs are in the city, but don’t pay well enough to live there, so they have to rent in the more rural towns and rely on the interstates to get around.
Could we, in America, make the 2030 deadline? Perhaps, but only if the government actually did something about it. We would need a massive infrastructure investment, we would need some regulations that define the cars requirements that are something other than “doesn’t blow smoke”. We would need a more aggressive subsidization program (like most of the other countries that are attempting to push heavy EV adoption)… And above all, it needs to be affordable to everyone, not just the person looking to swap out their BMW or Lexus for the new hotness. It’s gotta be affordable to the blue collar hard worker that is currently driving a late 90s pickup truck, or an early 2000s Camry. It’s gotta be affordable to the family that is buying a four-owner minivan. And it can’t be just because you point out “But the electricity is cheaper than gas! You’ll save in the long run…” Because they’d rather pay for the convenience and peace of mind that comes from knowing there’s a filing station every 10 miles, vs having to plan their existence around 30min charging stops.
If battery tech improves and range anxiety disappears, along with better rapid charging? None of this will be an issue anymore. Because that’s what everyone I’ve talked to is worried about: range and charging time. They want their replacement car to be BETTER than what it replaced. As would everyone, no? Especially when dealing with Americans, asking them the assign value to ‘being efficient/good for the environment’ doesn’t work. So yes, you’ve spent more up front, you’ve reduced the total distance you can drive on a full tank, you made refueling a hassle, and have to also hire a contractor to wire up charging capability in your garage. But you are now personally less responsible for carbon emissions!
…it’s a hard sell. What’s also a hard sell: I am one person. I do not need an SUV. I drive a coupe Civic right now… Where’s my compact econobox EV? Do I have to buy a big luxury sedan or SUV (or truck! Though I appreciate Ford and Rivian for making those options available) just to have an EV?
What’s also a hard sell: I am one person. I do not need an SUV. I drive a coupe Civic right now… Where’s my compact econobox EV? Do I have to buy a big luxury sedan or SUV (or truck! Though I appreciate Ford and Rivian for making those options available) just to have an EV?
This is my main problem with EVs today: They don’t make one I actually want. I have a small wagon and a hatchback, and those body styles aren’t available in an EV.
The prices will eventually come down, but will they ever actually make an EV I want to buy? Will that EV charge me a monthly fee for features? Will it track all my data and send it back to the car company? Like you said, I’ll buy an EV if it’s even a modest improvement, but the ones I see are actually worse that both cars I have now.
This guy is a known misinfo spreader.
Yep, they weigh more. Yep, they’ll lose about 100 miles off their range after 100k miles.
So what? Diy replacements are doable, it’s a 6-800v device (nominally), but you’d hire a professional to do an engine swap… or do proper research to understand what you’re dealing with.
What do you get after replacing a battery? A fully functional car. Still has its dings and dents, but still accelerates incredibly, has almost no maintenance items based on the simplicity of an electric motor, reliability of a solid state control system… how’s your ice doing after several hundred thousand miles? No co2 output at the pipe, right? No constant oil changes, right? No packing two complex automotive systems (electric and combustion) into one vehicle frame… Right?
Sheesh.
Lol. You’re the one spreading misinformation. For one, you aren’t getting to do a battery swap at home. You don’t have the capability of swapping out and moving around an 1,100 pound battery.
You can also pay someone to do an engine swap and parts and labor will cost you less than $8,000. Often less than $5,000. A battery swap will cost triple the amount. Sometimes more.
The range loss in cold and mileage time and warranty info are all easily verified. Just go look it up. Pull your head out of your ass.
Lmao I work on systems intimately related to this stuff, it must be fun being this consistently wrong, because you’re hell bent on sticking with it.
What a low-quality mechanic: moving a pack requires a pallet jack, or in a pinch, several furniture dollies from harbor freight, at $30/ea. Lifting into place, several scissor jacks. I mean really, aren’t you embarrassed by your lack of creativity? You poor man.
JuSt LoOk iT uP, how embarrassing. Durability of the packs is generally guaranteed for 10yrs of full cycle usage. What’s a cycle count as? Full charge to full discharge. How many people do that? It’s easy to do on a very small cellular phone battery, you’re less likely to feel comfortable doing that on a large vehicle.
The point is, you wear out your pack, the rest of the vehicle keeps running for another decade after pack replacement. The worn out pack is recycled, and new fully capable packs are made using the recycled filtered lithium. Less energy is required overall, by reprocessing a pack, not an entire vehicle.
I don’t care Cole. I’ll always fight your lack of knowledge and understanding wherever I see you, forever. I enjoy it, and will wear you down with the technical truth, not what the media or your dim friends parrot to you.
Funny, cause if people weren’t starting to see what I’ve been saying, then all the auto manufacturers in the US wouldn’t currently be scaling back their EV sales projections.
🤦 got it, moron. None of your points relate to why companies are scaling back, it’s been repeated in many different articles at this point: “targeting the small population of wealthy with SUVs and luxury cars is a strategy guaranteed to quickly reach saturation”.
Sheesh, try reading a little.
Oh. You must mean trickle down economics. Lol
Lmao dude you are really good at being dumb. Hey, fuck you for dragging the gene pool down.
I’m against trickle down/bull and sparrow economics. I’m saying EVs should be aimed at the working class, not the wealthy class as has been the case.
Sad
Sadly the charging infrastructure isn’t there yet. There’s only a handful of level 2 chargers near me so I’m it’s not practical at all unless I want to go through the hassle of getting charger installed at my house.
Or, just use a regular plug with the travel charger that comes with the car. That’s what I do. It adds about 80 miles back to the “tank” overnight which is more than enough for driving around town.
I only have street parking at my house and I don’t even have any outlets on the front of the house.
How much are you driving every day that an overnight charge isn’t enough?
Some people don’t have outlets near their vehicle, like people who live in an apartment.
I feel like this isn’t talked about enough. Charging at home doesn’t work for a lot of people. Give me a fast charger at the grocery store so I can charge while I shop and I’m in!
