Author Topic: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?  (Read 458197 times)

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Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2350 on: December 02, 2018, 06:22:34 pm »
In a real world scenario nobody is going to drive that much in a 24 hour period though.  If you need to go that far it makes much more sense to take an airplane.  Of course that's not very green, but perhaps once electric cars are mainstream the next step is to look into electric planes.  The biggest challenge is always going to be electricity storage so it's something we need to figure out.
A lot of people drive 7 to 10 hours a day for 2 or even 3 days when going on a holiday. Using an EV would add several hours to the travel time. The problem with an airplane is that you can't bring so much stuff like a tent, bicycles, clothes, etc.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2351 on: December 02, 2018, 06:27:28 pm »
You may opt may not like Elon or Tesla, but give credit where credit is due.  Elon is changing, no HAS CHANGED our world.    Talk about disruption.... 

With Ford in talks with merging with Volks Wagon and GM closing manufacturing facilities and cutting jobs
 
Model 3 - World Record: 1643 miles in 24 hours (including recharge)

Yet we're led to believe electric cars can't cover long distances in a short amount of time -
They can't. That is an average speed of 109km/h in a country where there is no speed limit.  :palm: FFS! My wife & I cruise at 150km/h through Germany and at 130km/h through other countries. My wife and I would need less than 18 hours to cover the same distance @ 150km/h through Germany.
Guess I’m not understanding you.  They claim to have done it, yet you say they can’t?  Can you explain?
Emphasis added. Either way your post about the 'world record' clearly underlines why EVs don't work well for long distances because the time needed for charging makes the effective speed go down a lot. There is also a world record for the fastest snail: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/70393-fastest-snail-racing An equally useful record.

And Eskimos have freezers and people living in the Sarahra desert have heaters......  What’s your point? 

Modern EV’s are 10  or so years old and still evolving.  ICE’s have been evolving for 0ver 100 years.  Just as there were milestones with ICE, modern EVs are creating milestones as well.  Just give them 90 years to catch-up.  But at the rate EVs are evolving probably won’t even take 25 years.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2352 on: December 02, 2018, 06:38:08 pm »
Making up history again. EVs have already died off once and the way things are (not) going with suitable batteries EVs will likely die off again. And again due to the batteries. Maybe in another 50 years after really good batteries have been invented EVs stand a chance.

But the point is that the record you are referring to is a record for doing something in a really obfustigated way.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 06:59:33 pm by nctnico »
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Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2353 on: December 02, 2018, 07:18:18 pm »
Making up history again. EVs have already died off once and the way things are (not) going with suitable batteries EVs will likely die off again. And again due to the batteries. Maybe in another 50 years after really good batteries have been invented EVs stand a chance.

But the point is that the record you are referring to is a record for doing something in a really obfustigated way.

You might be right or you might be wrong.  One thing I hope we can agee is Elon and Tesla motors has really disrupted the auto industry.  The world was a different place 100 years ago.  While history sometimes repeats itself there are times when it doesn’t.   This is an experiment in progress. 
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 08:29:42 pm by DougSpindler »
 

Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2354 on: December 02, 2018, 11:17:00 pm »
The last few posts make the the joke about statisticians being the expert you bring in when the figures can't lie for themselves quite clear.  Folks on both sides of the argument have presented correct facts and math, with neither side telling the whole story or believing that the other side has a point.

Another example of how figures can be used in opposite directions comes from my own case.  While I don't have exact statistics, I am confident that I well over 95% of my trips are of lengths that a wide variety of electric vehicles will support.  On the other hand, since the few trips that don't fit that profile are literally 100s of times longer than the short trips a significant majority of my travel miles are on trips that an EV is challenged to support.  How that plays into the overall decision depends on other specific use factors.  For example the distance to the closest rental agency and parking fees in or around that rental agency.

Clearly electric vehicles can go long distances.  Equally clearly, ICE vehicles can go further in the same time period for time periods over a few hours.  Which one is adequate and which one is better depends on specifics of use cases and preferences.
 
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Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2355 on: December 02, 2018, 11:30:25 pm »
The last few posts make the the joke about statisticians being the expert you bring in when the figures can't lie for themselves quite clear.  Folks on both sides of the argument have presented correct facts and math, with neither side telling the whole story or believing that the other side has a point.

Another example of how figures can be used in opposite directions comes from my own case.  While I don't have exact statistics, I am confident that I well over 95% of my trips are of lengths that a wide variety of electric vehicles will support.  On the other hand, since the few trips that don't fit that profile are literally 100s of times longer than the short trips a significant majority of my travel miles are on trips that an EV is challenged to support.  How that plays into the overall decision depends on other specific use factors.  For example the distance to the closest rental agency and parking fees in or around that rental agency.

Clearly electric vehicles can go long distances.  Equally clearly, ICE vehicles can go further in the same time period for time periods over a few hours.  Which one is adequate and which one is better depends on specifics of use cases and preferences.

I leaned in college 78.9% of the statistics are made up. Glad to see your data is in 100% support my professor’s statement.

It also depends where you live and what you do in life.  To put what you are saying another way would be to. act locally and think globaly.



 
 

Offline boffin

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2356 on: December 03, 2018, 07:43:41 am »
In a real world scenario nobody is going to drive that much in a 24 hour period though.  If you need to go that far it makes much more sense to take an airplane.  Of course that's not very green, but perhaps once electric cars are mainstream the next step is to look into electric planes.  The biggest challenge is always going to be electricity storage so it's something we need to figure out.
A lot of people drive 7 to 10 hours a day for 2 or even 3 days when going on a holiday. Using an EV would add several hours to the travel time. The problem with an airplane is that you can't bring so much stuff like a tent, bicycles, clothes, etc.

A lot of people move house once a year as well, by your logic their daily driver should be a moving truck.

For occasional use, it makes more sense to rent the capacity you need, rather than own it year-round.

 

Offline boffin

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2357 on: December 03, 2018, 07:46:09 am »
Making up history again. EVs have already died off once and the way things are (not) going with suitable batteries EVs will likely die off again. And again due to the batteries. Maybe in another 50 years after really good batteries have been invented EVs stand a chance.

dying off?  Are you looking at all of the data nmop episdn ?

1 in 12 new cars sold in Canada is an EV.

« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 07:52:39 am by boffin »
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2358 on: December 03, 2018, 07:53:07 am »
At some point that number will flatten off due to market saturation (*). In the end it comes down to the willingness of people to buy electric cars. A study made by the Dutch government (https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2016-stimuleren-van-elektrisch-rijden-1924.pdf ) from 2016 shows that people a more willing to buy Hydrogen powered cars than EVs due to the long time it takes to charge an EV. Buying an ICE car is still the most likely scenario.

Do these numbers include plug-in hybrids? If they do then they are massively skewed. People don't really charge plug-in hybrid but do like to collect the tax incentives. In the Netherlands the tax incentives for plug-in hybrid have stopped and the sales of plug-on hybrids is now close to zero.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 04:00:53 pm by nctnico »
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Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2359 on: December 03, 2018, 03:38:04 pm »
At some point that number will flatten off due to market saturation. In the end it comes down to the willingness of people to buy electric cars. A study made by the Dutch government (https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2016-stimuleren-van-elektrisch-rijden-1924.pdf ) from 2016 shows that people a more willing to buy Hydrogen powered cars than EVs due to the long time it takes to charge an EV. Buying an ICE car is still the most likely scenario.

Report is an excellent example of car manufactures not listening to their customers.  Don’t know of one car manufacture that’s producing hydrogen powered cars in any quantity. As for the Dutch people.....  Don’t they care about man caused climate change?  Do they not know the hydrogen which would be used to power their cars comes from the fossil fuels/crude oil? 

If they are so concerned with fueling times, I would think they would favor a nuclear power carr.  Only needs to be fueled once a year.

 
 

Offline coppice

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2360 on: December 03, 2018, 04:59:02 pm »
Don’t know of one car manufacture that’s producing hydrogen powered cars in any quantity.
As far as I understand the hydrogen powered cars produced to date have been sold at a lot, and only made to meet compliance conditions. Until there are more cost effective nobody is going to make them in greater volumes than they need to. A few people, like Mercdes, say they have greatly reduced the use of expensive materials in prototype fuel cells. We will have to see how that works out in production. They still have things like the heavy and expensive fuel tank, and its associated plumbing, to work on.
 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2361 on: December 03, 2018, 06:02:16 pm »
Don’t know of one car manufacture that’s producing hydrogen powered cars in any quantity.
As far as I understand the hydrogen powered cars produced to date have been sold at a lot, and only made to meet compliance conditions. Until there are more cost effective nobody is going to make them in greater volumes than they need to. A few people, like Mercdes, say they have greatly reduced the use of expensive materials in prototype fuel cells. We will have to see how that works out in production. They still have things like the heavy and expensive fuel tank, and its associated plumbing, to work on.

I would not say a lot of hydrogen fuel cell cars have been sold.  But Japan is saying they will be Hydrogen powered by 2022.  That's only 3 years.....  We will see.  Where I live there is only one fuleing station that's 20 miels away.  But as we know with the technology we have hydrogen powered cars require more enegy to produces, compress, transoprt and store the fuel than would be used to power the car.


https://youtu.be/f7MzFfuNOtY






 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2362 on: December 03, 2018, 06:07:27 pm »
EVs are the future of personal and commercial ground transportation. Period. Full stop. 

All of  the large, legacy auto manufacturers are now admitting this and all have EVs for sale and/or in development.

No, they will not be an easy plug and play replacement for ICE vehicles with their large supportive infrastructure developed over the past 100 years with $trillions$ of government subsidies.  But they will replace them nevertheless.

The process is already well underway evidenced by the sales numbers and development plans for new EVs and discontinuation of ICE vehicles by the large automakers. The only ones who don't seem to accept this are the uninformed or those whose political biases or cognitive dissoance prevent them from acknowledging it.

Their will never be anything to fully replace the amazing combination of energy density and easy transportability of oil derived liquid fuels.  Hydrogen was an idea explored as a possibility but the last few decades have proven that the expense and difficulty of transporting and transferring it safely and efficiently along with other short comings mean that it will never become a primary means of fueling vehicles. The few legacy token research and prototype vehicles are all that remains of that pipe dream. 

Biofuels are also a dead end for mass adoption which is clear to anyone who understands their energetics and fossil fuel dependence for mass production.

EVs are the best we can do and all we can hope for is that the political will materializes to allow a fast enough transition away from fossil fuel dependent electricity production so that future generations will have some availability of mechanized transportation as the oil age comes to a close.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 06:09:06 pm by mtdoc »
 

Offline coppice

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2363 on: December 03, 2018, 06:17:32 pm »
I would not say a lot of hydrogen fuel cell cars have been sold.  But Japan is saying they will be Hydrogen powered by 2022.  That's only 3 years.....  We will see.  Where I live there is only one fuleing station that's 20 miles away.  But as we know with the technology we have hydrogen powered cars require more enegy to produces, compress, transoprt and store the fuel than would be used to power the car.
Japan being Hydrogen powered by 2022 is just marketing BS. They just aim to have 10s of thousands of hydrogen powered cars, and a rather limited numbers of fueling stations. I haven't seen anything about them planning to use low carbon footprint approaches to producing the hydrogen, so it will probably be quite a high pollution scheme.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2364 on: December 03, 2018, 06:24:13 pm »
Don’t know of one car manufacture that’s producing hydrogen powered cars in any quantity.
As far as I understand the hydrogen powered cars produced to date have been sold at a lot, and only made to meet compliance conditions. Until there are more cost effective nobody is going to make them in greater volumes than they need to. A few people, like Mercdes, say they have greatly reduced the use of expensive materials in prototype fuel cells. We will have to see how that works out in production. They still have things like the heavy and expensive fuel tank, and its associated plumbing, to work on.
I would not say a lot of hydrogen fuel cell cars have been sold.  But Japan is saying they will be Hydrogen powered by 2022.  That's only 3 years.....  We will see.  Where I live there is only one fuleing station that's 20 miels away.  But as we know with the technology we have hydrogen powered cars require more enegy to produces, compress, transoprt and store the fuel than would be used to power the car.
People don't care about that. Fuel for ICE cars and making batteries for an EV takes a lot of energy too. What counts is not going back to a horse you need to give water at every stop and let it rest for a long time after doing longer stretches.

@mtdoc: as long as EVs don't offer a 1 on 1 replacement when it comes to ease of use and costs versus a different kind of car then your beloved EV revolution isn't going to happen. The ICE + bio-fuel and Hydrogen hold much better cards for short term broad adoption by the people. See the study I linked to earlier. Most people simply don't want EVs due to long charging times. If that isn't fixed then EV adoption will remain marginal and sales number will flatten or even drop due to market saturation.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online Marco

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2365 on: December 03, 2018, 06:50:04 pm »
Also we lack enough Lithium to electrify transport, but there's no lack of water.
 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2366 on: December 03, 2018, 07:26:49 pm »
EVs are the future of personal and commercial ground transportation. Period. Full stop. 

All of  the large, legacy auto manufacturers are now admitting this and all have EVs for sale and/or in development.

No, they will not be an easy plug and play replacement for ICE vehicles with their large supportive infrastructure developed over the past 100 years with $trillions$ of government subsidies.  But they will replace them nevertheless.

The process is already well underway evidenced by the sales numbers and development plans for new EVs and discontinuation of ICE vehicles by the large automakers. The only ones who don't seem to accept this are the uninformed or those whose political biases or cognitive dissoance prevent them from acknowledging it.

Their will never be anything to fully replace the amazing combination of energy density and easy transportability of oil derived liquid fuels.  Hydrogen was an idea explored as a possibility but the last few decades have proven that the expense and difficulty of transporting and transferring it safely and efficiently along with other short comings mean that it will never become a primary means of fueling vehicles. The few legacy token research and prototype vehicles are all that remains of that pipe dream. 

Biofuels are also a dead end for mass adoption which is clear to anyone who understands their energetics and fossil fuel dependence for mass production.

EVs are the best we can do and all we can hope for is that the political will materializes to allow a fast enough transition away from fossil fuel dependent electricity production so that future generations will have some availability of mechanized transportation as the oil age comes to a close.

Well said. 

In reading this you made me think of pollution control devices on cars.  It was over 100 years ago California had the cleanest air.  People moved here because of the clean air.  Then in the late 1940s the air was mysteriously becoming polluted.  It took a UC Berkeley scientist to figure out the reason the air was becoming polluted was car exhaust.

By the 1960s the air was so polutted your eyes would water and your throat would burn from all of the air pollution.  Had our governement not steped in and ordered car manufactures to install polution controll devices our air would be unbreathable.  But besace they did, and the car manufractures and consumers tried to prevent it our air is clean and breathable once again.  (Except when we have forest fires.)

What I am getting at is EVs might be more expelsinve today, and might not be exactly what consumers want today.  But in the long there is no doubt they are better for all of society.

Just as consumers 100 years ago favored ICE cars over ECE and EVs.  We are slowly seeing consuers starting to favor EVs.  And with companies like Volvo discontinuing ICE cars.  Then you have GM announcing they will be closing 15 ICE car manufactoring plants one can see something's going on.  And then we have Ford announing they will discontinue manufacturing ICE cars and want's to become a Tech company like Tesla.

With all of these chages occuring it will force consumers to pruchae EVs.  And at that happens we will see more charging stations and improvements to the electrial distrubution system.  Will "we" be inconvienced as this change occurs?  Probably, put just like the gas shortage and linse to get gas in the 1970s will we figure this it out.

Let me leave you with one last thought.   If you wanted to start a new business manufacturing cars what energy source would you use to power the car?  Steam, gasoline/ICE or fuel cell, Hydrogen, nuclear, compressed air or electrical?  Of maybe you might want to make buggies becuea you think horses will make a comeback.

I think there's are reason Volvo and Tesala are in the EV camp.....  It is our future.  If you dsagree start making cars and see if anyone will buy them.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2018, 04:30:45 pm by DougSpindler »
 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2367 on: December 04, 2018, 04:32:18 pm »
Looks like EVs won’t be selling well in Austraila.

https://youtu.be/euGIg7lp3XY

 
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Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2368 on: December 04, 2018, 04:53:58 pm »
I think there's are reason Volvo and Tesala are in the EV camp.....  It is our future.  If you dsagree start making cars and see if anyone will buy them.
Volvo is Chinese nowadays so no surprise there. The only reason it makes sense to make EVs is because it is a niche market with growth. The ICE car market is extremely competitive so if you can't play along with the big boys you try to find a niche.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2369 on: December 04, 2018, 05:46:22 pm »
The fact that most car makers are currently trying to jump on the EV bandwagon is no particular sign of it being "our future" or even being a wise move. They are just simply doing that for very basic competition reasons. In other words, they basically have no choice. This is exactly what happens with any trend no matter how relevant or bullshitty it is.

The more interesting factors to look at are not their current EV projects, but how much they invest in those and the other projects they are leading IMO.

 

Offline f4eru

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2370 on: December 04, 2018, 07:07:14 pm »
Hello to the EV troll community :popcorn:
The november figures are there, and as usual, they look excellent  :-+
https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
 
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Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2371 on: December 04, 2018, 07:22:00 pm »
Hello to the EV troll community :popcorn:
The november figures are there, and as usual, they look excellent  :-+
https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

Impressive. They more than doubled year over year. Especially impressive considering that during the same yoy period, total vehicle sales declined.
 

Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2372 on: December 04, 2018, 08:00:06 pm »
Are you reading the same charts?

2016 Sales (US)  158,614
2017 Sales (US)  199,818
2018 Sales (US)  308,003

I guess if you round up to the nearest integer it counts as doubling of sales between 2017 and 2018.  Barely.  The totals are impressive and a good trend, but let's be honest.  Even if December sales are off the chart it will be less than double.  A believer sees the world in their own way, just as non-believers do.

The trend is clear and unless something changes (major recession, a kink in the supply chain, sudden drop in oil prices) it is clear that sales will be into a double digit percentage of total sales in the next few years.  Which would be one metric for the title of the thread- electric becoming mainstream.

One thing I found interesting was the percentage of worldwide sales in the US.  That is the climate change denying, car bedazzled, some of the lowest gas prices in the world, relatively long driving distances US.  Electrics are sold at about the same percentage of total sales here as in the rest of the world, even though many of the factors involved in their selection seem to work against US sales.  What is going on in the rest of the world?
 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2373 on: December 04, 2018, 08:11:26 pm »
I'm talking year over year comparison for November (i.e. monthly) sales.

November 2017:  17,178
November 2018:  39,274
 

Offline coppice

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2374 on: December 04, 2018, 08:20:52 pm »
I'm talking year over year comparison for November (i.e. monthly) sales.

November 2017:  17,178
November 2018:  39,274
I'm not sure monthly sales are a good comparison if you look at how the sales of some key models bounce around. For example, why did sales of the Volt double from October to November? Year over year probably averages too much in this rapidly rising market, but month by month looks really noisy.
 


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