Just a few weeks ago we did an 800 mile road trip in our recently acquired diesel.We stated with a full tank and drove about 700 of those miles at a steady 65mph,the other 100 in bad conditions (stop & go,lost,massive rainstorm,etc).When we got home and filled the tank we found that we had gotten 47.02 mpg and the "distance to empty" reading was "15 miles".
Let's see an EV do that.
Diesel is more efficient than EV, why does Europe have diesel vehicles and we don’t (en mass). Politics? It’s cheaper to convert too!
What would you do if battery technology improved by a factor of 2.5 or 3x?
So, then about 800-1000 mile range, and the recharge cost was ~5.00$?
Right now, depending on many factors, electric vehicles are MORE expensive than IC. I drive a 585HP sports car. I am a technology guy, and for me it’s not about climate change (which is Not caused by man or cow farts), it’s about price/performance.
When/If battery tech improves, it would be a game changer.
Another consideration is the total amount of parts in the average car - a electric car has far fewer drive train parts. Of course, if batteries get cheap and dense, then a high performance car could cost *much* less than a high performance gas or diesel. Consider batteries are a mass-production device - that is, there is no hand assembly.
For now, advantage is to IC engines - which as you know have been steadily improving over 100 years.....but battery tech is in its infancy as it takes advances in chemistry and nanotechnology we are just now getting ready to exploit.
A conservative estimate is that in 5 years batteries will improve by 2X, while the lower estimate is 1.5x and upper is 3x.
Once you reach over 650 mile range, the average drive needs downtime - 650 miles divvied by 70mph is 9.2 hours....
Tomorrow morning, I’ll leave my house north of Baltimore and drive to Greeneville, SC pulling a 16’ trailer with a F-150. I’ll be down there for a couple days for work. Friday, I drive home, stop and change out duffel bags and go up to Dover, DE for the weekend, from there I drive to Augusta, ME, then stop on Long Island getting home next Friday night.
I’ll be making plenty of gas stops, but they take five minutes, not five hours each