Author Topic: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?  (Read 458198 times)

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Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2450 on: December 07, 2018, 11:42:58 pm »
Well, I have not heard of many breakdown in this area, especially in hybrids like the Prius and Honda Civic hybrid, like we have in our family.  There were some issues with the battery controls on the Honda, and they had a LOT of trouble with the 2011 and earlier batteries (NiMH).  But, I have not heard of any failures of the motor drive electronics on either of those cars.  (I researched this a lot before buying.)

You can check online for trouble reports for these various cars.

Jon
Reliability of the electronics another made up non-issue.
No it isn't. The current crop of EVs is not designed to be made for the lowest cost. Wait until the manufacturers start to cut corners because manufacturing  volume will make it worth while to save a few cents. There are many cars out there with problems in the electronics due to poor design choices. Think about mounting a circuit board with through-hole components directly on a diesel engine. You'd say it is stupid but Opel/GM did it.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2451 on: December 08, 2018, 02:10:54 am »
The bottom line is the EVs should be intrinsically more reliable.  At least pure EV.  Far fewer moving parts, less vibration, less waste heat.  As we have all experienced, enough cost cutting drive can make anything unreliable.  How this plays out in the EV world is not predictable at the moment.
 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2452 on: December 08, 2018, 05:21:55 am »

After Word War II America took "stole" two German cranes used in shipping.  One was used in Long Beach, not sure about the other one.

Google "Herman the German" crane.

Amazingly it's still around, however Herman the German, is actually Finnish.

And Liebherr (the big crane people) are Swiss aren't they ?

Are you sure about it being Finish?  Found a source here saying it was built by a German company whih sill appears to be making carnes today.
http://www.tideworks.com/2017/11/15/herman-the-german/

Not so sure the Nazi’s would have ordered something of this size and cost from a non-German company at the time. 
 

Offline boffin

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2453 on: December 08, 2018, 07:20:00 am »

After Word War II America took "stole" two German cranes used in shipping.  One was used in Long Beach, not sure about the other one.

Google "Herman the German" crane.

Amazingly it's still around, however Herman the German, is actually Finnish.

And Liebherr (the big crane people) are Swiss aren't they ?

Are you sure about it being Finish?  Found a source here saying it was built by a German company whih sill appears to be making carnes today.
http://www.tideworks.com/2017/11/15/herman-the-german/

Not so sure the Nazi’s would have ordered something of this size and cost from a non-German company at the time.

You're right, built by the Germans, by what is now a Finnish company.  But it's a very cool story
 

Offline boffin

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2454 on: December 08, 2018, 07:22:20 am »
Think about mounting a circuit board with through-hole components directly on a diesel engine. You'd say it is stupid but Opel/GM did it.

So what you're saying is that an ICE car won't even last 300,000km ?
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2455 on: December 08, 2018, 10:26:37 am »
Think about mounting a circuit board with through-hole components directly on a diesel engine. You'd say it is stupid but Opel/GM did it.
So what you're saying is that an ICE car won't even last 300,000km ?
No, I'm saying that cost cutting leads to premature failures due to design errors.

Fortunately a lot can be fixed in software nowadays:
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/03/volkswagen-recalling-5600-electric-cars-due-to-a-stalling-problem/
« Last Edit: December 08, 2018, 10:44:15 am by nctnico »
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Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2456 on: December 08, 2018, 10:29:15 am »
The bottom line is the EVs should be intrinsically more reliable.  At least pure EV.  Far fewer moving parts, less vibration, less waste heat.
As I wrote before that is not true. For starters there are thousands of welds in the battery pack and most EVs have a more complicated cooling/heating system for the batteries & electronics compared to an ICE. There are just as many places where things can go wrong. You have to look at the entire system that makes a car move forward.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2018, 10:31:34 am by nctnico »
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Offline gildasd

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2457 on: December 08, 2018, 01:01:48 pm »
The bottom line is the EVs should be intrinsically more reliable.  At least pure EV.  Far fewer moving parts, less vibration, less waste heat.
As I wrote before that is not true. For starters there are thousands of welds in the battery pack and most EVs have a more complicated cooling/heating system for the batteries & electronics compared to an ICE. There are just as many places where things can go wrong. You have to look at the entire system that makes a car move forward.
Have ever taken apart an ICE motor? There are thousands of places the slightest casting or machining defect could damage an engine after it ran trouble free for 100 000km.
And contrary to a dodgy weld on a nice flat grid pattern, finding where the cooling is sucking in air at only certain RPM, it is rather hard to zero on.
In rising frustration, one tends to dismantle the whole bloody engine  and change all the darn gaskets.
Only to find, while putting it back together, that’s is the iffing flexible to the expansion tank.
ITS ALWAYS THE BLOODY FLEXIBLES, WHY DOES THE MANUAL NEVER ASK TO CHECK THEM?!
“Pants”, erm, or so I have heard.
From a friend.
I'm electronically illiterate
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2458 on: December 08, 2018, 02:38:05 pm »
 :palm: Your own story already says it: in 99.9% of the cases is it something simple like a hose or a lose/bad electrical connection. Not doing fault finding in a structured manner is just poor judgement from the person trying to find the problem.

And no, you can't visually inspect welds because the part of the weld which matters the most is invisible.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2018, 02:40:03 pm by nctnico »
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Offline gildasd

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2459 on: December 08, 2018, 03:44:26 pm »
I was exaggerating a bit, but I do work on large HFO/MDO engines.
We have to do constant monitoring and repairs. Please don’t say my colleagues are incompetent, but we often struggle to find the source of certain problems (even when the man from MAN is here):
- Injector heads dying too fast.
- Injector springs breaking - and yes, it is always the impossible to inspect inner one.
- cooling issues despite having brand new box coolers that are better in every way than the bad but faultless predecessors.
- preheating pump motors dying after 4 years when they should last 20.
- Cracked crankcase mist vent pipe that manufacturer cannot manage to remanufacture...
- Exhaust heat sensors that just die in random conditions.
- Turbo oil seals that fail slowly.
And it goes on, but this is considered normal ops, even better than average and we have a 100% reliability record. These are marine engines built to far higher standards than car engines.
These engine supply 5 propulsion motors (3 pods, 2 thrusters) an during the last five years we have just added grease to the bearings. That’s it, a few CCs grease.
We also have large battery packs (small rooms), and nothing to report on those - even welds.
The only main drive electrical nuisance to report are two large capacitors that failed in a cloud of smoke, the sparkies can fix that in minutes, even an injector is a least an hour job.
I'm electronically illiterate
 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2460 on: December 08, 2018, 06:17:10 pm »
The bottom line is the EVs should be intrinsically more reliable.  At least pure EV.  Far fewer moving parts, less vibration, less waste heat.

Exactly right. Anyone who has rebuilt ICEs or transmission can attest to the ill effects of heat and metal on metal friction that is inherent in ICE and ICE vehicle transmission operation.   Electron flow does not cause such wear.  Sure EVs have some moving parts that will be subject to wear but far fewer and the ones they have are not subject to the kind of heat, friction and mechanical forces that and ICE and transmission are.

Anyone claiming that EVs are equally susceptible to this kind wear and tear is either uniformed or being purposely deceitful. This is an engineering forum so thankfully most here will understand these issues.

Quote
  As we have all experienced, enough cost cutting drive can make anything unreliable.  How this plays out in the EV world is not predictable at the moment.

Yes.  As EVs become more widely adopted, more models, including economy models built at the lowest possible cost will surely have their own unique reliability issues. The future is always uncertain but the track record of EV reliability to date is extremely good and there is no question that the routine maintenance costs are much lower than an ICE vehicle.  As you say, from a purely engineering perspective, there is no reason not to think that EVs will in general be more reliable and require less maintenance than ICE vehicles.
 

Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2461 on: December 08, 2018, 07:57:14 pm »

Quote
  As we have all experienced, enough cost cutting drive can make anything unreliable.  How this plays out in the EV world is not predictable at the moment.

Yes.  As EVs become more widely adopted, more models, including economy models built at the lowest possible cost will surely have their own unique reliability issues. The future is always uncertain but the track record of EV reliability to date is extremely good and there is no question that the routine maintenance costs are much lower than an ICE vehicle.  As you say, from a purely engineering perspective, there is no reason not to think that EVs will in general be more reliable and require less maintenance than ICE vehicles.

The CFL story is a testimony to what can happen.  CFLs were predicted to have excellent life.  Many had good experiences with early CFLs.  But as the costs were forced down and they flooded the market there were many that ended up with worse life than the incandescents they replaced.   Some of that was from unexpected (at least by those predicting long life) gotchas.  Who knew that people put light bulbs top down in unvented enclosures?  Or that a retractable shop light gets dropped regularly and put in close proximity to exhaust manifolds and other hot objects.

I would be cautious about saying from a "purely engineering perspective" since that implies that cost is not an engineering function.  It also implies that reliability is a purely quantitative and well understood function.  Many, many engineers from those involved in CFL manufacturing on up those who did the space shuttle reliability predictions have found that the latter is not true.  The only really solid reliability information comes from lots of real world experience with fleets of comparable products.  The first generation of EVs are not representative and future results will both benefit from the learning experiences on the early ones, and suffer from the need to build in high volumes and low cost.

One obvious thing that will happen with EVs is that people will run out of charge.  No reason to think people driving EVs will be smarter or more diligent than those driving ICEVs.  Currently there is no simple fix like the tow service with a gas can.  The most obvious solution, a tow vehicle with a high capacity generator may not work out economically (assuming half hour to hour charge time plus transit time it can only get used a few times a day.)  Towing back to a charge point works from the tow companies economic standpoint, but will not fly well with the public, which wishes fixes for its stupidity to be painless, or nearly so.  And there is no way to implement the poor mans solution, hoofing it with a gas can.  It may be possible to call a friend and get some kind of a charge from his EV, though that requires something not built into current EVs AFAIK.  And of course they may get lucky and roll to a halt within an extension cord of an outlet. 

 

Offline Jester

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2462 on: December 08, 2018, 07:58:09 pm »
Think about some of the most common repairs required on a typical car:

  • Mufflers and exhaust systems, will Midas exist 20 years from now?
  • O2 sensor
  • Radiator - rad shops are history
  • Water pump and cooling system
  • Spark-plugs, coil packs and ignition wires
  • Fuel filters, fuel pumps fuel tanks and fuel lines
  • Emission equipment about a gazillion sensors
  • Oil pans and oil leaks
  • Transmissions very complicated ones with ever more gears for improved efficiency

None of these exist on a EV!

Looks like we will be dealing with tires and brakes and the odd other issue 90% of the stuff that breaks will no longer be part of the car.

We have 5 Tesla's and 1 Bolt or Volt or whatever they call it within 1 block of home, I think EV's will come faster than some think.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2018, 08:02:07 pm by Jester »
 
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Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2463 on: December 08, 2018, 08:15:13 pm »
But then you have car companies like Ford, Chevy and VW discontinuing EVs of the hybrid flavor.  This is making harder for consumers to transition to EV of the BEV flavor.

 

Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2464 on: December 08, 2018, 09:06:33 pm »
The CFL story is a testimony to what can happen.  CFLs were predicted to have excellent life.  Many had good experiences with early CFLs.  But as the costs were forced down and they flooded the market there were many that ended up with worse life than the incandescents they replaced.   Some of that was from unexpected (at least by those predicting long life) gotchas.  Who knew that people put light bulbs top down in unvented enclosures?  Or that a retractable shop light gets dropped regularly and put in close proximity to exhaust manifolds and other hot objects.

I would be cautious about saying from a "purely engineering perspective" since that implies that cost is not an engineering function.  It also implies that reliability is a purely quantitative and well understood function.  Many, many engineers from those involved in CFL manufacturing on up those who did the space shuttle reliability predictions have found that the latter is not true.  The only really solid reliability information comes from lots of real world experience with fleets of comparable products.  The first generation of EVs are not representative and future results will both benefit from the learning experiences on the early ones, and suffer from the need to build in high volumes and low cost.

One obvious thing that will happen with EVs is that people will run out of charge.  No reason to think people driving EVs will be smarter or more diligent than those driving ICEVs.  Currently there is no simple fix like the tow service with a gas can.  The most obvious solution, a tow vehicle with a high capacity generator may not work out economically (assuming half hour to hour charge time plus transit time it can only get used a few times a day.)  Towing back to a charge point works from the tow companies economic standpoint, but will not fly well with the public, which wishes fixes for its stupidity to be painless, or nearly so.  And there is no way to implement the poor mans solution, hoofing it with a gas can.  It may be possible to call a friend and get some kind of a charge from his EV, though that requires something not built into current EVs AFAIK.  And of course they may get lucky and roll to a halt within an extension cord of an outlet.


The race to the bottom is a problem with ALL goods, not just CFLs or cars. People tend to be short sighted and/or uninformed and shop almost purely by price and cosmetic style, so the best selling goods are usually the absolute cheapest. For various reasons that seems to be less true with cars, after 100+ years of development and orders of magnitude greater complexity, modern cars are more reliable and longer lived than ever.

Yes, running out of charge is going to happen to some people just as they now run out of gas, and the can of gas solution won't work here, but simply towing the whole car is not really that big of a deal. Cars break down all the time and have to be towed, that infrastructure is already in place and widely used, and given the cost savings vs gasoline and the time savings vs having to stop and fill up every couple weeks or so even if one is a forgetful clod and runs out of juice now and then the total hassle and cost spread out over time is likely to be less. Have the car towed either home or to the nearest charging station and get an Uber/Lyft/whatever ride to your destination just as you'd do if you have a breakdown that can't be easily fixed on the side of the road.

It's not that hard to avoid running out of power though, none of the EV owners I know have ever run out. You just have to get past the gasoline mentality of running the car until empty and then filling up. You plug in each night and the car is full every morning, it's fantastic, it's the one thing every EV owner I've met raves about the most. Planning around range is easy because you start out full every day and people who buy EVs are people who commute well within the range of the vehicle they buy.
 

Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2465 on: December 08, 2018, 10:40:33 pm »
The CFL story is a testimony to what can happen.  CFLs were predicted to have excellent life.  Many had good experiences with early CFLs.  But as the costs were forced down and they flooded the market there were many that ended up with worse life than the incandescents they replaced.   Some of that was from unexpected (at least by those predicting long life) gotchas.  Who knew that people put light bulbs top down in unvented enclosures?  Or that a retractable shop light gets dropped regularly and put in close proximity to exhaust manifolds and other hot objects.

I would be cautious about saying from a "purely engineering perspective" since that implies that cost is not an engineering function.  It also implies that reliability is a purely quantitative and well understood function.  Many, many engineers from those involved in CFL manufacturing on up those who did the space shuttle reliability predictions have found that the latter is not true. The only really solid reliability information comes from lots of real world experience with fleets of comparable products.  The first generation of EVs are not representative and future results will both benefit from the learning experiences on the early ones, and suffer from the need to build in high volumes and low cost.

One obvious thing that will happen with EVs is that people will run out of charge.  No reason to think people driving EVs will be smarter or more diligent than those driving ICEVs. Currently there is no simple fix like the tow service with a gas can. The most obvious solution, a tow vehicle with a high capacity generator may not work out economically (assuming half hour to hour charge time plus transit time it can only get used a few times a day.)  Towing back to a charge point works from the tow companies economic standpoint, but will not fly well with the public, which wishes fixes for its stupidity to be painless, or nearly so.  And there is no way to implement the poor mans solution, hoofing it with a gas can.  It may be possible to call a friend and get some kind of a charge from his EV, though that requires something not built into current EVs AFAIK. And of course they may get lucky and roll to a halt within an extension cord of an outlet.


The race to the bottom is a problem with ALL goods, not just CFLs or cars. People tend to be short sighted and/or uninformed and shop almost purely by price and cosmetic style, so the best selling goods are usually the absolute cheapest. For various reasons that seems to be less true with cars, after 100+ years of development and orders of magnitude greater complexity, modern cars are more reliable and longer lived than ever.

Yes, running out of charge is going to happen to some people just as they now run out of gas, and the can of gas solution won't work here, but simply towing the whole car is not really that big of a deal. Cars break down all the time and have to be towed, that infrastructure is already in place and widely used, and given the cost savings vs gasoline and the time savings vs having to stop and fill up every couple weeks or so even if one is a forgetful clod and runs out of juice now and then the total hassle and cost spread out over time is likely to be less. Have the car towed either home or to the nearest charging station and get an Uber/Lyft/whatever ride to your destination just as you'd do if you have a breakdown that can't be easily fixed on the side of the road.

It's not that hard to avoid running out of power though, none of the EV owners I know have ever run out. You just have to get past the gasoline mentality of running the car until empty and then filling up. You plug in each night and the car is full every morning, it's fantastic, it's the one thing every EV owner I've met raves about the most. Planning around range is easy because you start out full every day and people who buy EVs are people who commute well within the range of the vehicle they buy.

I am going to start by saying I am really not for or against electric cars.  As I said earlier, if the Tesla X came at a substantially lower price point there would be one in my driveway.  But this whole thread on both sides seems to confuse fact and opinion.  To illustrate I coded the above quote into blue for fact and red for opinion.  With purple for a couple of sentences that are sort of on the line.

I doubt that EV owners rave about the plugging in process.  About not going to the gas station, sure.  About being full everyday, sure.  That plugging in is a minor inconvenience, sure.  But, saying WOW, maybe I'll go out and run around the block just so I can plug in again seems really unlikely to me. 

Range planning is easy - for your daily commute.  Not so much in other cases.  I have a friend who owns, and loves a Leaf.  He has on rare occasions had range problems.  Caused by things like an unexpected trip to an offsite meeting or the like.  I have run out of gas in an ICE on a couple of occasions, and come very close on a couple others.  All cases were on cross country trips where a planned gas stop didn't exist for one reason or another.  Bad atlas/gps information.  A recently closed station.  Or one with very limited hours.  EVs will run into similar problems.  And will fare either better or worse depending on the situation.  In a couple of my outage cases an EV could have relatively easily begged a 110V connection and merely had to cool their heels while they got enough charge.  In a couple of other cases the whole business situation had dried up and blown away, so no easy electric solution.   
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2466 on: December 08, 2018, 10:49:34 pm »
Yes, running out of charge is going to happen to some people just as they now run out of gas, and the can of gas solution won't work here, but simply towing the whole car is not really that big of a deal.
Until you get the bill. A few liters / gallon of gas costs you a few dollars / euros. Towing a car can get 10 times more expensive and take way more time. Although with some EVs you get a free tow service in case you run out of charge.
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 #2467 on: December 08, 2018, 11:24:13 pm »
Here’s a good piece of American trivia.  The wife of President Woodrow  Wilson, Edith owned one of the first electric cars.  This was before she became the unofficial President of the United States after Wilson had a stroke.

Reference source  More Perfect Episode 7.  Or the 25th Amendment.
 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2468 on: December 08, 2018, 11:53:42 pm »
Yes, running out of charge is going to happen to some people just as they now run out of gas, and the can of gas solution won't work here, but simply towing the whole car is not really that big of a deal.
Until you get the bill. A few liters / gallon of gas costs you a few dollars / euros. Towing a car can get 10 times more expensive and take way more time. Although with some EVs you get a free tow service in case you run out of charge.

I pay about $20 a year extra on my auto insurance for free roadside assistance and towing. I've never needed to use it to be towed. I have used when I've run out of gas...

I suspect tow trucks in the near future will have the ability to do a small rapid charge - enough to get an EV to the nearest charging station.

FWIW - my Volt has a feature where if it is out of gas and out of charge it goes into a "limp home" mode which allows it to drive a reduced speed for some miles by using the lower 20% of battery capacity that is normally never used.  I believe some other EVs have this as well.  So in that regard EV owners may be less likely to run out of fuel and find themselves stuck on the road than ICE drivers.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2469 on: December 09, 2018, 12:29:20 am »
I doubt that EV owners rave about the plugging in process.  About not going to the gas station, sure.  About being full everyday, sure.  That plugging in is a minor inconvenience, sure.  But, saying WOW, maybe I'll go out and run around the block just so I can plug in again seems really unlikely to me. 


You are missing the point. They rave about being able to just plug in each night and have a "full tank" every morning and thus never having to go to a gas station. Nobody drives around just so they can plug in, that's ridiculous, the process of plugging in the car isn't exciting in itself, it's just awesome being able to plug in the car like we plug in our mobile phones each night vs the alternative of watching the gas gauge and driving to a filling station. You don't have to take my word for it though, I can put you in touch with several EV owners if you'd like to ask them what they like best, most of the guys I know are car enthusiasts and more than willing to chat about their vehicles.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2470 on: December 09, 2018, 12:36:53 am »
Until you get the bill. A few liters / gallon of gas costs you a few dollars / euros. Towing a car can get 10 times more expensive and take way more time. Although with some EVs you get a free tow service in case you run out of charge.


Yes, I know how much a tow costs, I've had my car towed once when the fuel pump failed. That has happened once, which is one more time than I've run out of gas. How often do you run your car out of gas that the cost of an emergency refuel is something you take into consideration when you buy a car? Are you unable to keep an eye on the gauge? Can you not remember not to try driving 100 miles in a day on a car that has a range of 80 miles? Do you need to write yourself a note so that you don't forget and try driving 500 miles in a gas car that has a range of 400? I'm frankly a bit baffled that some people have difficulty recognizing the limits of whatever machine and operating within those limits. For the rest of us it's not a problem. None of the EV owners I've known have ever run out of juice, they start out every day with a full charge, their commute is well within the range of the car, why would they ever run out?
 

Offline eugenenine

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2471 on: December 09, 2018, 01:22:24 am »

Have ever taken apart an ICE motor? There are thousands of places the slightest casting or machining defect could damage an engine after it ran trouble free for 100 000km.


Yes, there are less than 1000 parts.  I could take a few minutes and name them all even, they are not complicated.
 

Offline IanB

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2472 on: December 09, 2018, 01:59:47 am »
...like we plug in our mobile phones each night...

Not everyone. I, for one, don't plug my phone in each night. I tend to wait until it complains about low charge and then recharge it. Usually it is several days between charges, which is why I don't charge it every day.

Mind you, I probably would plug in an EV every night, since the pain of running out of charge would be far worse than with a phone.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2473 on: December 09, 2018, 02:10:49 am »
None of the EV owners I've known have ever run out of juice, they start out every day with a full charge, their commute is well within the range of the car, why would they ever run out?
You are (falsely) assuming that all people can actually plug an EV in at home for charging. So your whole argument goes straight out of the window. Also being able to plug in at home doesn't solve the long waiting time at a charge station when you want to make a long trip. You can't ignore the fact that there might not even be a (working) charging station where you are going but it is more likely you'll find a gas station. Most EV owners in this thread seem to shrink their world to places where there are chargers. What happened to cars bringing freedom to go wherever - whenever you want? When my wife and I go on a trip we fill the car up in the morning (takes 5 minutes and there is always a gas station along the road) and we drive all day without any care about range / running out of fuel.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2018, 02:27:00 am by nctnico »
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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #2474 on: December 09, 2018, 05:06:50 am »
I doubt that EV owners rave about the plugging in process.  About not going to the gas station, sure.  About being full everyday, sure.  That plugging in is a minor inconvenience, sure.  But, saying WOW, maybe I'll go out and run around the block just so I can plug in again seems really unlikely to me. 


You are missing the point. They rave about being able to just plug in each night and have a "full tank" every morning and thus never having to go to a gas station. Nobody drives around just so they can plug in, that's ridiculous, the process of plugging in the car isn't exciting in itself, it's just awesome being able to plug in the car like we plug in our mobile phones each night vs the alternative of watching the gas gauge and driving to a filling station. You don't have to take my word for it though, I can put you in touch with several EV owners if you'd like to ask them what they like best, most of the guys I know are car enthusiasts and more than willing to chat about their vehicles.

It might help if you read what I said.  Three of the five sentences there were to emphasize what your point was.  But it wasn't what you said.  You said they rave about being able to plug in every night.  This is in a comment about separating fact from opinion.

The plugging in every night is a minor inconvenience, both for EVs and for cell phones.  We put up with that minor inconvenience for the many benefits, and most of us believe that the inconvenience is heavily overwhelmed by the benefits.    The EV fan boys here won't admit that it is even a minor inconvenience.  The same ones magnify the horror of stopping at a gas station periodically.  It is a minor inconvenience that goes with ICE vehicles.  Different people might differ about the magnitude of that minor inconvenience on either side of the divide, but I am sure that it isn't a big deal for most people on either side of the debate.  I will also agree that there are edge cases on both sides which have real differences of opinion.  Someone who does almost all short trips in a bedroom community without a gas station might find the trip to the next community over for gas a big deal.  And some folks might live in areas where the owners and all the other patrons of the gas station are creepy low lives, making the minor inconvenience frightening.  But that is something like the edge cases of people who have very difficult access to a charging port.
 
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