opinions concerning electric cars?

[factotum]

So while you can argue about the feasibility of heavy-machinery and rural/long-distance electric vehicles, there is no getting around the fact that centralized urban electric cars are an elegant solution to many of the most significant problems presented by urban automobile traffic.

With regard to urban traffic, you're entirely right, but you can't just ignore long-distance traffic. In the UK things aren't too bad--I doubt there's anywhere in this country so remote that a person living there couldn't make a trip to the nearest large city and back on a typical electric car charge--but in places like Australia and the US that's no longer a given, and those people will eventually need usable electric transport just like everyone else.

[Vinyadan]

Could long distance commuters have engines with the choice between electricity and gas? Kinda like those that allow you to choose between gasoline and liquid propane? Or are the two incompatible?

[DavidSh]

Plug-in hybrids do exist. The all-electric ranges vary.

[halfeye]

Or if you really can't do either of those, get a taxi.

Those are pounds per mile, as I recall. For 120 miles you'd almost make a profit compared to that by buying second hand and selling on your return. Buses and (to a lesser extent when you can't book months in advance) trains are cheaper, but finding one on a Sunday is not easy.

[gomipile]

There are plenty of applications where driving 500 miles in one day is required. Until there are low-mid cost EVs that can do that even towards the tail end of their service life, I'll be against completely replacing the internal combustion fleet.

Superchargers and Tesla aren't currently an answer to this, really. Looking at an EV trip planner website, using a Tesla would require an extra one to two hours total(depending on model) split between four charging stops. That's on a trip that I only refill my gas tank once on when I drive it.

When my father was a traveling company representative, he rented a car rather than flying for anything less than 500 or so miles away. Adding one to two hours each way on all of those trips would have added up to a lot fewer hours I'd have been able to spend with him while he was alive.

[factotum]

For 120 miles you'd almost make a profit compared to that by buying second hand and selling on your return.

Case in point:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/b...ristol-1448547

[Peelee]

What if you need to make an emergency journey somewhere? My mother lives 120 miles away from me. Last year, she had a heart attack and was taken into hospital--as the closest relative with reliable transport, I was required to drive up to her house, get a bunch of stuff she needed, and drive it over to the hospital. This was on a Sunday with less than 24 hours of notice. Good luck getting a hire car for a 300-odd mile round trip in that situation.

Note to self: Open a U-Haul in the UK and clean up, apparently.

[LordEntrails]

The emergency car thing depends on where you live.

Here in the US, near any of the major cities (so a WAG would be ~100 cities within an hour of 75% of the population) you can get a ICE rental car 24/7 for something like $30-40/day withing maybe 30-45 minutes of wait/paperwork/etc.

So, for lots of people, using a rental car for those possible situations needing a long range vehicle it's possible. But, it's not possible for everyone, and other nations are certainly going to be different.

Now, another possibility in the future for electric cars is with car sharing. Drive one car 75 miles to the next charging/swamp station and then pick up a new fully charged car, drive, swap, repeat. But of course, in the future as their is no such infrastructure.

[gomipile]

Also, keep in mind that ability to own own a car does not imply you may rent a car for everyone in the USA.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

There are plenty of applications where driving 500 miles in one day is required. Until there are low-mid cost EVs that can do that even towards the tail end of their service life, I'll be against completely replacing the internal combustion fleet.

This is a strawman fallacy if I ever saw one. The topic of this thread is "what is the current reasons for buying an electric car" not "should all internal combustion cars be replaced" or whatever you seem to think it is. No-one is disputing that there are circumstances where an internal combustion is necessary. But in the US, the average commute is well within battery limits of electric cars, even in bad weather.

Grey Wolf

[5a Violista]

This is a strawman fallacy if I ever saw one. The topic of this thread is "what is the current reasons for buying an electric car" not "should all internal combustion cars be replaced" or whatever you seem to think it is. No-one is disputing that there are circumstances where an internal combustion is necessary. But in the US, the average commute is well within battery limits of electric cars, even in bad weather.

Grey Wolf

Except, on page 1, somebody did ask if long drives is even a problem people face that can't just be solved by just renting a car, and it seems like subtext from a couple posters implied they think electric cars would be a reasonable solution for everybody, and that entire post seemed to be in response to that idea.

So, still related to the topic and I didn't read it as a strawman, anyway.

[monomer]

It was an article in IEEE Spectrum a couple years ago. I can't find it at the moment and, as I said, am running off (probably faulty) memory.

Without being able to see the article, it should also be noted that EVs with air-cooled batteries, such as the Nissan Leaf, lose their capacity much faster than those with liquid-cooled batteries.

[veti]

Except, on page 1, somebody did ask if long drives is even a problem people face that can't just be solved by just renting a car, and it seems like subtext from a couple posters implied they think electric cars would be a reasonable solution for everybody, and that entire post seemed to be in response to that idea.

The whole "rent" option assumes that petrol is still a common thing, so no, that suggestion doesn't imply "solution for everyone". What it does imply is that the common reasons trotted out for not buying electric are probably not valid in a lot of cases.

People tend to remember exceptional events far more clearly than they remember routine. That's natural, but it often leads them to plan on the basis that the exceptions are way more common than they really are. It's called availability bias.

[Rockphed]

The whole "rent" option assumes that petrol is still a common thing, so no, that suggestion doesn't imply "solution for everyone". What it does imply is that the common reasons trotted out for not buying electric are probably not valid in a lot of cases.

People tend to remember exceptional events far more clearly than they remember routine. That's natural, but it often leads them to plan on the basis that the exceptions are way more common than they really are. It's called availability bias.

Too bad people don't plan on disasters appropriately. If everyone was prepared for a hurricane or 3 days without power, we wouldn't see stores sell out of everything just because there is a predicted disaster in the works.

[VoxRationis]

I have an electric car, so the question isn't hypothetical for me. It's nothing special, an i-MiEV I picked up because it was the absolute cheapest electric car in the area, but it's suiting me well. It's true, I couldn't make a 100-mile trip in a random direction, but I find that's not really a factor in my lifestyle anyway. The vast majority of my traveling is between home, work, and the grocery store, and the only out-of-town place I travel to is usually quicker and more sensible to fly to. I do spend a lot of time minding the energy gauge, but it's not really that troublesome to plug it in when I come home at night, approximately once a week. I do have to make charging it, and its current range before charging, more of a consideration than fueling a gas vehicle is, though. That's a small but noticeable amount of extra mental effort. The upsides are that charging it costs much less than buying gas and it's quiet to run (some people fetishize engine noise but I do not).

[factotum]

The whole "rent" option assumes that petrol is still a common thing

Which won't always be the case. In the UK sales of new petrol cars will be banned from 2040 onwards, so the petrol station infrastructure is inevitably going to start declining after that point as old petrol cars die and are not replaced. The "rent a petrol car" solution is likely not going to be available in 30 years' time, so by then we need electric cars with ranges comparable to petrol ones now.

[veti]

Too bad people don't plan on disasters appropriately. If everyone was prepared for a hurricane or 3 days without power, we wouldn't see stores sell out of everything just because there is a predicted disaster in the works.

That's - a reasonable precaution, if you can spare the storage space, because the investment required to prepare is only small.

But even if everyone who could do it, did, the stores would still be stripped when a hurricane is incoming. For starters, there are people who simply can't spare enough space in their home to store that food and water long term. Then there will be people who suddenly realise their stores are too old, or they've got more people in the house than they planned for, or they've recently moved and haven't gotten around to stocking up yet.

Emergencies happen, and when they do, you do what it takes to get through them. Just make sure that the cost of preparation is proportional to the likelihood and severity of the crisis. If you're spending $100 a year to be ready for an emergency that only comes around every ten years, and would cost you $400 to handle without the precaution - then you're being irrational.

[Glorthindel]

The nearest parking spot to my house is about 20-25m away, and given the area, if I was somehow able to drape a charging cable across the distance without annoying all my neighbours, and everyone who passes through the pedestrian square in front of my house, the odds of coming back to find the cable still attached to my car (either because someone has decided to get a free charge boost off my electricity, or because one of the local kids found it funny to unplug it) would be vanishingly slim.

My daily commute is 9 miles each way (though site visits would mean I could easily have to do 100-150 miles extra in a day at short notice), and I live in a city where they are currently threatening a low-emission zone (which my house would fall solidly within), so I am the ideal person to consider an electric car, but the logistics make it not even a consideration.

[snowblizz]

I've resisted 37 years buying a car. Admittedly the first 18 were easiest. I'd have preferred electric but ultimately it was not possible since there's effectively no second hand market yet and I could not see how it'd be reasonable to buy a 30k+ € car for my limited needs. Basically in the cases where both options existed an electric car would cost my entire planned budget (which ironically I had to double anyway) ontop of the price of the car. The only reason I have one is that I cannot feasibly bike 100kms on the semi-rare occasions I need to and ultiamtely I decided renting was too much of an hassle on short notice in small town with limited rental capacity.

I'll note that making a car and getting the fuel and raw materials is a dirty business regardless of what kind of propulsion system it has. It's only a question of what environment you are ok getting polluted and with what. Arguing that producing an electric car is polluting is a BS argument because a petrol car requires basically the same.

People complaining about dirty batteries are usually concerned with the very legitimate questions on how and where raw amterials come form. 90% of the cases doing so on their 4th version in 2 years of a mobile device filled with conflict mined rare metals. Seriosuly don't ask where the metal running that oh so vital chip comes from if you want to feel good about yourself.

My opinion on the average person's ability to judge distances needed can be summed up as follows. My dad was concerned about electric car range (he sort of wanted one). He commuted 1,5km to work with his car. The same distances on foot/bike is just over 500m due to how footpaths and car roads happen to be laid out. He still insists it's too far to bike. The grocery stores are about 1.5-2 kms away and the distance to town centre equally about 2 kms. That's 99% of needed trips. Yet the fabled "long distance trips we are always making" usually got the majority of consideration. He also refuses to acknowledge that battery technology has vastly improved from the Gen 1 Leaf to one sold today.
I can be honest with myself and say convenience (ignoring the money issue) and not range is the main question.

Infrastructure now isn't conductive to electric cars. That's 90% a question of will. It's a bit like saying you can't get a fibre connection to your houses because it only has copper telephone wires. Keep in mind when cars were launched there were no petrolstations either and you were mad to try and use one to drive long distances over a reliable and no-fuss-refuelable horse. Turn petrolstations into charging stations and you sort of solve the issue. Besides, as a driver you shouldn't be driving several tanks worth of gas without decent breaks inbetween anyway.

I'll also point out that there already exists plenty of parking with electrical outlets. For engine heaters. Am sure none of you warm weather dwellers have heard of such. But nonetheless, the fact that curretly your parking space does not have an outlet is not a unchangeable problem or something that means electric vehicles aren't going to be the next technological "societal leap". Odds are any space with a parkingmeter is gonna be a space with a parkingmeter with a electrical outlet and you pay for parking by/with getting car charged. Some scenarios probably involve you getting paid for providing power from your car's battery to even out nighttime/daytime useage differentials. Many places has recogniced the business opportunity and I saw MacDonalds in Sweden now promoting their charging spaces. They are not gonna be the only ones. Like I said, will, we are more constrained in our view of how things are now rather in ability to solve many of the issues.

Also kids for some reason don't pull those cables either regularly. I think it's called having been raised right. And am sure your car isn't ergularly getting windows smashed either. Or any other potential "sabotage" that could occur today but doesn't. And I say this well aware that the night before last some *****s torched 100 cars in Sweden. It's not an electric car problem. It's a people problem.

Hydrogen cars is no panacea either they have some problems of both electric cars and petrol cars, while solving others. For one hydrogen storage is problematic long term, it'll evaporate (escape the containment). Petrol goes bad too but not at the same rate (a hit in the stomach for all those post-apocalyptic scenrios seldom adressed).

Even today we have 2 different technologies in cars. Diesel and petrol. And they are as incompatible as petrol/electric is really. There's no reason to think something similar won't continue. Maybe it's hydrogen for long-distances just as diesel today is mainly for those driving a lot. It's funny really because we think of e.g. trucks as needing long-distance capacity but like 90% of truck trips are daytrips from a freighthub into a major city that could easily be done with an electric vehicle. And as things are shaping up I suspect it's going to be soon rather than later. I'd not be surprised if self-driving and electric are going to be packaged together in a proffesional context first.

As is battery tehcnology is the achilles heel of electric but I suspect there will be some advances there. I'll point out that wearing out a battery pack isn't a mayor issue in of itself, you can recycle the materials (in fact msot aplces you a have to do so with a regular car abttery), and given that they are usually valuable that's probably going to happen. Already IIRC one manufacturer you don't actually buy the battery to your electric car but technically lease it from them. Same as I buy a beer* and can turn in the bottle for a cashback recycling reward we'll see the same on carbatteries. I recently read it was considered on mobile phones which contain more valuable metals per ton than the raw ore they were originally made from.

*ok I don't drink beer but the principle is the same for bottle water even

[Peelee]

Too bad people don't plan on disasters appropriately. If everyone was prepared for a hurricane or 3 days without power, we wouldn't see stores sell out of everything just because there is a predicted disaster in the works.

I mean, many disasters can't really be prepared for (at least by most people). The preparation for hurricanes and tornados, for instance, is "get the hell out of their way." Home insurance may pick up some of the tab if your house is gone, but you're still out of a house.

[veti]

I mean, many disasters can't really be prepared for (at least by most people). The preparation for hurricanes and tornados, for instance, is "get the hell out of their way." Home insurance may pick up some of the tab if your house is gone, but you're still out of a house.

There's a middle ground, though, and "have enough long-life food and bottled water in the house to last three days" is a reasonable, cheap precaution that helps against quite a range of plausible scenarios, from natural disasters and power cuts, economic/banking crises (going without money or credit for three days), or sickness - you could just be too ill to go shopping.

[wumpus]

Also, keep in mind that ability to own own a car does not imply you may rent a car for everyone in the USA.

I suspect that most Americans that can't rent a car have similar issues when choosing a car to buy (there are only so many cheap and somewhat reliable cars nearby). Sure there are some well-off people under 25 that can choose between a Telsa-S and a Porsche, but outside of the Silicon Valley I doubt you will meet many (the ones with inherited wealth may have their parents veto a gas or electric car).

Usually the "easy to rent" applies for the choice to pay tens of thousands more for a SUV than keep paying twice as much for gasoline (thanks to half the mileage) because you don't want to rent a U-haul *ever*. You'll spend a lot more time dealing with the maintenance of a gas vehicle than you ever will dealing with rental vehicles (don't forget the tires: just because nothing else needs maintenance doesn't mean you can forget the tires).

Note: 500 miles used to be far easier to drive before 9/11. My parents live 512 miles away, and google maps says it takes 8.5 hours to get there (at least 9 with lunch, and gods help you if you try on a holiday). Something has to go pretty wrong if it takes more than 9 hours for flight plus time to/from airports plus being there early. But I've only done it a few times and the last one easily took more than 9 hours total.

[Peelee]

I suspect that most Americans that can't rent a car have similar issues when choosing a car to buy

Not as long as craigslist exists.

[Rockphed]

I suspect that most Americans that can't rent a car have similar issues when choosing a car to buy (there are only so many cheap and somewhat reliable cars nearby). Sure there are some well-off people under 25 that can choose between a Telsa-S and a Porsche, but outside of the Silicon Valley I doubt you will meet many (the ones with inherited wealth may have their parents veto a gas or electric car).

Usually the "easy to rent" applies for the choice to pay tens of thousands more for a SUV than keep paying twice as much for gasoline (thanks to half the mileage) because you don't want to rent a U-haul *ever*. You'll spend a lot more time dealing with the maintenance of a gas vehicle than you ever will dealing with rental vehicles (don't forget the tires: just because nothing else needs maintenance doesn't mean you can forget the tires).

Note: 500 miles used to be far easier to drive before 9/11. My parents live 512 miles away, and google maps says it takes 8.5 hours to get there (at least 9 with lunch, and gods help you if you try on a holiday). Something has to go pretty wrong if it takes more than 9 hours for flight plus time to/from airports plus being there early. But I've only done it a few times and the last one easily took more than 9 hours total.

Pretty much anything under 12 hours drive is going to be faster or more convenient to drive. I live an hour away from a major airport. My parents live 45 minutes - 1:30 away from a major airport (depending on traffic and construction). It takes a good 24 hours of driving to get from one to the other, so it is better to fly. On the other hand, my wife's parents live 14 hours away and there aren't direct flights from their airport to any near me, so it is somewhat easier to drive.

[factotum]

Pretty much anything under 12 hours drive is going to be faster or more convenient to drive.

It depends entirely on the conditions at each end of the flight. You say that you live around an hour from an airport and so do your parents--unless it takes more than 10 hours to check in, make the flight, and get a car rental at the other end, it's still going to be faster to fly. More convenient? Possibly, but I can't help but think that all you're going to be doing after a 12 hour drive is sleeping, whereas after the flight you'll probably still be in a condition to actually do stuff like talking to your parents, having a cribbage game, or whatever.

Yes, you said the drive in your case would be around 24 hours, I'm just pointing out that the convenience/speed equation balances out with *much* shorter drives than that.

[snowblizz]

It depends entirely on the conditions at each end of the flight. You say that you live around an hour from an airport and so do your parents--unless it takes more than 10 hours to check in, make the flight, and get a car rental at the other end, it's still going to be faster to fly. More convenient? Possibly, but I can't help but think that all you're going to be doing after a 12 hour drive is sleeping, whereas after the flight you'll probably still be in a condition to actually do stuff like talking to your parents, having a cribbage game, or whatever.

Yes, you said the drive in your case would be around 24 hours, I'm just pointing out that the convenience/speed equation balances out with *much* shorter drives than that.

I'm basically in agreement, though sometimes flying works funnily nowadays with hubs. If I wanted to fly to the next town over I'd have to go via our capital (because that's where the main international airport is and the doemstic carrier can only be bothered with one hub). In essence flying twice the distance east only to return half the distance west. When I was young smaller planes would "town hop" towards the main international airport.

Similarly I once found myself stranded in San Francisco (they bumped me, but not my luggage) going to central Illinois to visit a friend. Had I made the flight to Chicago no problem, regionally I can get closer. However the only option for catching that last leg down south from Chicago was the flight I couldn't get on. There was no other flights into central Illinois that day. After calling my friend to tell him am not making the flight we expected he told me to fly to St Louis instead and he'll pick me up there. Both Chicago and St Louis was about 4hrs away by car but apparently you do not want to be stuck in Chicago traffic. Ever. Had I known how hard it would be to ge tmy luggage afterwards though I'd have gone to Chicago to yell at the baggage reclaim in person.

Basically most small and midsized places there are only so many options to fly in/out. So I can sorta see how convenience tips towards the "I can control the trip" side.

[Peelee]

It depends entirely on the conditions at each end of the flight. You say that you live around an hour from an airport and so do your parents--unless it takes more than 10 hours to check in, make the flight, and get a car rental at the other end, it's still going to be faster to fly. More convenient? Possibly, but I can't help but think that all you're going to be doing after a 12 hour drive is sleeping, whereas after the flight you'll probably still be in a condition to actually do stuff like talking to your parents, having a cribbage game, or whatever.

Yes, you said the drive in your case would be around 24 hours, I'm just pointing out that the convenience/speed equation balances out with *much* shorter drives than that.

Agreed. Flying is faster and more convenient for any drive over 5 hours, far as I'm concerned. Now, price is wholly different. A friend and I drove to NYC once because flying was more expensive, and that was an ~18 hour trip. Each way.

[Gnoman]

Personally, I prefer trains for the level of long distance travel I generally do. Most of the convenience of a car, but you can read a book or something instead of focusing on the road. The furthest I ever go is three states, so the time difference isn't that huge.

[Rockphed]

Personally, I prefer trains for the level of long distance travel I generally do. Most of the convenience of a car, but you can read a book or something instead of focusing on the road. The furthest I ever go is three states, so the time difference isn't that huge.

You must be in the east somewhere, because around here, 3 states almost inevitably takes me across a time zone.

[Peelee]

Personally, I prefer trains for the level of long distance travel I generally do. Most of the convenience of a car, but you can read a book or something instead of focusing on the road. The furthest I ever go is three states, so the time difference isn't that huge.

I know two types of train, "freight trains" and "trains blocking the dang road they've been stopped for like twenty minutes now OH I KNOW YOURE NOT REVERSING IT YOU SONS OF-"

You must be in the east somewhere, because around here, 3 states almost inevitably takes me across a time zone.

North/South?