Posted on 07/18/2021 11:51:22 PM PDT by Cronos
Many observers are forecasting that the world’s transition to electric cars will take place much sooner than expected. Now, BBC is also joining the fray. “What makes the end of the internal combustion engine inevitable is a technological revolution. And technological revolutions tend to happen very quickly … [and] this revolution will be electric,” reports BBC‘s Justin Rowlett.
Rowlett points to the late ’90s internet revolution as an example. “For those who hadn’t yet logged on [to the internet] it all seemed exciting and interesting but irrelevant — how useful could communicating by computer be? After all, we’ve got phones! But the internet, like all successful new technologies, did not follow a linear path to world domination. … Its growth was explosive and disruptive,” notes Rowlett.
So how fast will electric cars go mainstream? “The answer is very fast. Like the internet in the ’90s, the electric car market is already growing exponentially. Global sales of electric cars raced forward in 2020, rising by 43% to a total of 3.2m, despite overall car sales slumping by a fifth during the coronavirus pandemic,” reports the BBC.
According to Rowlett, “We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford’s first production line started turning back in 1913.”
Want more proof? “The world’s big car makers think [so]… General Motors says it will make only electric vehicles by 2035, Ford says all vehicles sold in Europe will be electric by 2030 and VW says 70% of its sales will be electric by 2030.”
And the world’s luxury automakers are also getting in on the action: “Jaguar plans to sell only electric cars from 2025, Volvo from 2030 and [recently] the British sportscar company Lotus said it would follow suit, selling only electric models from 2028.”
Rowlett spoke with Top Gear’s former host Quentin Wilson to get his take on the electric revolution. Once critical of electric cars, Wilson adores his new Tesla Model 3, noting, “It is supremely comfortable, it’s airy, it’s bright. It’s just a complete joy. And I would unequivocally say to you now that I would never ever go back.”
One of my pals has had a Tesla S since 2014. He now drives a 2021 model S.
He’s getting 88/mpg equivalence on the new S. Range is 377 miles. He charges at night in his garage with a 220 line. If he’s making a long drive he stops at a Tesla supercharger station, takes 15 minutes to add 200 miles.
The battery pack on the 2014 was still charging at over 80% when he sold it. Virtually zero maintenance on the car other than tires and getting it washed. Tesla can monitor the car’s performance and occasionally they would come out to his house to update something. Software updates are done over the air.
This guy has driven all sorts of higher end cars. He used to keep them for two years and turn them in. He now has no interest in driving anything other than a Tesla. And if you like performance this thing will do 0-60 in 3 seconds.
I’m still not sure why someone hasn’t created a hybrid where all the ICE does is charge the batteries.
That would remove the complexity of having two power sources driving the wheels, and the ICE would run at optimal RPMs to charge the batteries.
China’s Nio uses battery swap. Nio is probably the largest Chinese EV maker.
Despite that, the objection that EVO X makes is valid, and in addition the necessary contact points between car and battery are a weakness, a potential failure point. A permanent battery like Tesla uses doesn’t have that same problem.
I love my John Deere Gator...I use it almost every day.
Hmmm, maybe if I walked a little more I could lose some weight...oh well.
History is littered with new products that were dead on arrival because someone in the "grand ideas department" didn't speak to someone in the "devil's in the details department" before approving a product for manufacturing and marketing.
Hmm...60 month loan at 3.11%, your monthly payments would only be $36,035. I’d opt for the towing package.
What?
I thought the butchers with the white coats in the back made all the meat themselves. Then they shrink wrapped it in those styrofoam trays all nice and neat for us shoppers.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. You do not understand the physics, mathematics and energy requirements behind vehicular technology. Your “faith” in EV technology is masked ignorance. Technology has to be bound by scientific laws. There is simply no way to generate enough electricity to completely convert the entire planet to EVs. It can’t be done.
Your comparisons of little things like lawn mowers and chain saws to vehicles going hundreds of miles at high speeds carrying heavy loads is just a tad preposterous? You like your battery powered chain saw , therefore the internal combustion engine is doomed - this isn’t even a logical error, it’s pure fantasy. The comparisons aren’t even remotely close.
Finally - comparing gas powered cars to the horse and buggy is ridiculous. The horse and buggy was a LESS powerful technology compared to motor cars. Gasoline vehicles are MORE powerful than EVs. You’ve got the comparison exactly backwards. Reread what I’ve written. Slooowly. Try to wrap your head around it - it’s not that complicated.
You can charge a model S from 20% to 100% in under 4 hours from the panels on my roof. The shortest day of the year at my latitude has 9 hours 59 mins of sunlight and every other day of the year has more than that. NOAA 30 year climate data confirmed what my solar tracker app on the inverters also saw over 220 days of sunlight in a year. On the shortest day of the year my panels made 120 kWh of electricity my large 4500+ sqft home used 30 that day with 90 sold to ERCOT. I could have used just 4 hours of that sun to fill a Tesla to the top with 330 miles plus. In the 5 years I have had my panels not a single month have they generated less than my home used in August I have 120+ kWh surplus days. 15,000 watts on the main house the guest home has its own system both back feed the grid and make a profit every month. Solar makes perfect sense in sunny Texas. No one has a oil well, oil gas separator, refinery with hydrocraker to yield the EPA required low sulfer petrol. Having panels on my roof is the equivalent to having all of that in my backyard as I can fully support a Tesla for well more than 80,000 miles per year of range just with the surplus power I sold to ERCOT last year.
This statement alone shows that you have no clue what you are talking about. There are tons of technical challenges to fast-charging batteries: Voltage limitations, heating problems, chemical breakdown. The idea that these are not technical issues is scientifically illiterate...
I leased a model S for a year loved it. Charged it off my panels on the roof when I was home during the day most days. It was crazy fast much faster than the turbo Volvo it replaced for less per month in lease cost at that. From purely economic point of view it makes more sense to sell daylight solar power to ERCOT at peak rates which can be as high as 90 cents per kWh than charge at night off the 220v line using wholesale wind power at 3.6 cents or less per kWh. I am currently demoing second life power walls that can be charged over night as well using cheap wholesale wind power then feed it back to the grid at peak rates in a load shift mode. I also have demoed the stand alone grid free mode charging the LI cells during the day and using them to feed the inverters over night. With the current power rates it makes zero sense to do that, day time solar power is worth 3 to ten times as much as night wholesale prices I would rather push 15,000 watts from the panels and another 20,000 from the power walls to the grid at peak time and then buy back one third the rate at 2 am till sun up.
The EV industry has clearly decided to go the rapid charging route for highway travel. My guess is it will be another 5 years until 350KW charging technology is readily available. Tesla is still rolling out their 250K chargers. Only the Model 3 and newest S and X can fully utilize those chargers. I live at the intersection of I74/I57/I72. I’ve never seen more than 3 or 4 Teslas charging at the 150KW station. Most of the time it is zero to 2 cars. This suggests to me that Tesla cars are still just a popular metro area commuter car.
It seems to me one would be taking a substantial risk buying a used EV that is off warranty, especially one with high charging cycles.
It's going to be an environmental disaster regardless. And with such a concentrated demand on electricity there will be a lot of scenarios "don't charge your cars. There's no power in the grid.." Which, is exactly what the ochlocracy wants. Total control by the totalitarians.
With all due respect, I don’t care to be the first one out of the green light. I care about about going 650km on a charge, while loaded down in the back of the car with camping supplies.
Many here want to tow a trailer. Hauling matters not hauling ass. 🙂
You didn't say the above? Long charging times are not a function of battery replacement, they are a function of the technical problems with charging batteries...
The lawsuits are already rolling in.
If you really care, I suggest you go to my post history on this thread and follow the back and forth conversation.
But to summarize yet again...
Long charging times are not a technical problem with EVs, they are a technical problem of EVs with built in batteries. If we want to solve that problem, it is solvable with current technology by swapping out battery packs although the EVs would have to be designed for that (some already exist) and some infrastructure would have to be built to accommodate it. However, it would not require any new battery technology or frankly any technology that doesn’t exist today. Ergo, it’s not a technical problem. If we collectively were serious about addressing that particular problem, then it would likely require standardization, some sort of lease financing or service subscription to cover the pack cost and a network of swapping stations, most likely along major interstates. Would that be easy? I didn’t say it would. Keep in mind battery pack swapping would only be necessary for long distances. Most people currently using EVs would chug along happily with their current pack, charging nightly and commuting to their office and the grocery store, until maybe it was time to visit Grandma out of state. It is doable today with enough money, cooperation and will. Or we could wait for another generation of batteries that might solve this problem someday.
Absent that, then yes, if you only consider EVs with built in battery packs as the only EVs possible to build, and with then assuming current battery technology, then long charging times are inevitably a hard-stop problem for people who need to travel long distances. It’s not a problem for people who live in cities and just commute and have time to charge at night, ergo the current EV marketplace composed almost exclusively of vehicles with built in batteries and which can’t be used for long range trips.
As long as we have gasoline and diesel powered vehicles, it’s unlikely we’ll ever have battery pack swapping on a large scale. The economics won’t make sense. EVs will have their metropolitan niche and everyone else will happily use ICEs. Instead of renting expensive battery packs, people with EVs will just rent even more expensive entire gasoline powered vehicles for those trips outside their EV’s range.
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