EV - not ready for the masses?

[Tommyd]

It'll work for some but there's a huge swath of people EV is just not right for. They're a super long way off from working for us.

We won't own any, possibly ever.

Preach it!

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[Snake Eyes]

I kinda wonder what will happen when vehicle batteries in EV hits end of life at about 10 years. No one will buy the vehicle due to 10K cost to put in new batteries. You as the owner get the choice of spending 10K on new batteries or getting new car every 10-14 years not by choice.

Then towing. Lose 40 percent range from the tow and another 20 percent or more if you do so in the cold. So until they improve that you wont see gas gone for anything superduty level which is construction, farming, recreational, trucking, etc.

 

[GrubbyBaja]

The 2021 US annual electricity consumption was 4.12 trillion kWHr. Assuming all gasoline vehicles were converted to EV and assuming the gasoline vehicle efficiency at 30%, an additional 1.36 trillion kWHr of electricity would be required throughout the US...that's a 33% increase in electrical generation and distribution. I don't have the numbers as to total US kWHr capacity, but a 33% increase is huge. Then, there is the issue of instantaneous demand on the local distribution system which will occur when everyone gets home from work, plugs in their EV, and turns on the AC...that's a recipe for some distribution lines burning down. I'll think about an EV when I can "refuel" in 5 minutes after a 400 mile drive. My daily driver is a 2000 Nissan Frontier that gets 28 mpg. I don't have to be an accountant to crunch the numbers of my daily driver vs a $50K EV...and yes I do my own maintenance on that vehicle. Do EV's even make it to 220,000 miles? Not knocking EV's. They just don't work for me and they won't work for the US if policies dictate immediate change without verification of the supporting infrastructure. The instantaneous torque would be great, but the energy storage is the issue for me.

 

[steve68]

Nope, don't care, wont buy one, I like gas, smelly burning high test, race fuel, I watch the Tesla idiots fight about spaces at the Wawa's, wife's friends have one, gotta stop and charge, nah!

I like my muscle cars, Hot Rods, big V8's, well, not as much anymore, I'm actually going to pull my BBC 462 out and put in a LS and OD trans, just nose heavy, but as the saying goes "Burning Gas and Hauling Ass!"

 

[Outside Reality Check]

I want my EV Gladiator, (or PHEV), the masses are ready. At least they will be. If you don't think so, I respect that, and I have a crate full of buggy whips for sale. ICE's aren't going to disappear anytime soon, but they do pollute alot for a daily driver. I spend 99% of my driving year getting to work. If I could pollute less doing that, and spend less on fuel, yeah.

 

[AmosMoses01]

Really? No takers? Has anyone on this thread that claims EVs either don’t work, or are more expensive to charge, ever owned one? Anyone? My advice is stop looking at charts. Talk to people that have these. They’ll happily tell you how it’s worked for them.

Howdy - I don't own one, but have many colleagues that do have them here in Austin. All with various flavors of Tesla. Their feedback has been very useful and insightful for me. First, they all love the fact that our employer provides charging stations for free, which they take full advantage of. Second, if they take a day trip to Houston or Dallas, they take an ICE vehicle not their EV due to the charging inconvenience. It gets a tad warm here in the summer, and they've provided feedback that the A/C running to keep the batteries from overheating in the summer sun in the parking lot really makes for logistic challenges when planning a trip - hence their happyness with the fact our employer provides charging stations.

Their general take is "the good parts are good" but "there are not-so-good parts" that need to be understood up front before buying one. Which, honestly, is close to the same thing I tell folks who see my JT or my wife's JLU and want to get one.

 

[DPF140]

I'll be trading in my Gladiator when the 4Xe is available in a couple years... All electric is not the solution for everyone. A few people, sure. Most 2 car families could get away with 1 all EV and 1 Hybrid. That's truly what I see the future being.

Check out this video... it's great!
https://tedxsanantonio.com/2019-fall-speakers/graham-conway/

 

[WILDHOBO]

Howdy - I don't own one, but have many colleagues that do have them here in Austin. All with various flavors of Tesla. Their feedback has been very useful and insightful for me. First, they all love the fact that our employer provides charging stations for free, which they take full advantage of. Second, if they take a day trip to Houston or Dallas, they take an ICE vehicle not their EV due to the charging inconvenience. It gets a tad warm here in the summer, and they've provided feedback that the A/C running to keep the batteries from overheating in the summer sun in the parking lot really makes for logistic challenges when planning a trip - hence their happyness with the fact our employer provides charging stations.

Their general take is "the good parts are good" but "there are not-so-good parts" that need to be understood up front before buying one. Which, honestly, is close to the same thing I tell folks who see my JT or my wife's JLU and want to get one.

Fair kind of. Tesla shouldn’t be the only example. They suck.

 

[DPF140]

Japan is betting on hydrogen

Check out Proton Technologies... Hydrogen is truly the future!

 

[ShadowsPapa]

These are mostly inaccurate statements based on no real information. Take it from someone who has owned 5 plug-ins to date from multiple manufacturers. You of course can use the cruise control. It’s more battery efficient. No you don’t need to turn down your wipers. This is absolutely false. You get enormous regeneration on the interstate, especially if there are some hills to go down. Your figures regarding cost to charge compared with cost to fill a gas tank couldn’t be further from accurate. We spent many years with two electric daily drivers. Our average increase in our electric bill was around $100. And one of ours was doing 140 miles round trip, 4 days per week. That’s a lot of kw per week. It’s not even close to the cost of gas. Depending on your tank size, most people spend between $60 and $100 per tank to fill up. And usually several times per month to fill up. Fox News should be the last source for accurate EV statistics. They get their ratings with controversy, not accurate reporting.

Cruise was unavailable. They were trying to tweak up the remaining distance gauge, reducing electric use by turning the wipers down, turning off cabin cooling and so forth. It's accurate. They were driving it, they were trying to make the next charge station and at one point, the next station was farther than what their dash told them they had in distance. So, if you are 50 miles from a gas station, your truck tells you that you have 35 miles left on that tank, do you not try to tweak your speed or the load on the electric systems or take other moves to try to squeeze out another few miles? That's what they were doing. That Kia told them they had xx miles left. The next station was farther away than what they had. It told them cruise was not available. I didn't catch the reason
I would have personally done pretty much what they did - shut down as many things as possible to conserve power.
I've been in the situation where the next gas station was farther than expected due to road construction - I turned off accessories, AC, slowed my speed, and made it (was with my Chevy, and that thing was damned accurate on miles remaining - you didn't second-guess that thing)

This was a Kia, so to say it operates exactly the same as any vehicle someone else has had may not be accurate.

Your figures regarding cost to charge compared with cost to fill a gas tank couldn’t be further from accurate.

LOL - you didn't read it, did you? I was quoting the cost they tracked to charge along the trip they took!! No one was saying it was the cost to charge at home. Even they said it would be cheaper to charge at home. When you are driving a full day, you find charging stations using at app like they did, and you PAY. Charging along the way isn't free.
I calculated what they HAD TO PAY (because electric charge stations cost you money just like gas at a gas station - you plug in, you pay) and I figured what our vehicles would have used in gas along that route, estimate, of course, and used what they PAID out of pocket, and yes, I could have saved half a day and only paid 200 more.

We spent many years with two electric daily drivers. Our average increase in our electric bill was around $100.

So, you are comparing a trip on the road to the cost to charge at your home? You believe you can drive 2,000 miles and not need a charging station?
I've driven KS and NE many times, and trust me, there won't be any regeneration on many of their highways. Flat, you can see for so many miles, it's crazy. Even in chunks of Indiana, you won't be going down hill much at all. There are states where you drive for 2 hours and not really go down a hill.

Anyway, I'd love to see how you could drive 2,000 miles and never need a charging station - or where you drive that the charging stations are free to use and charge in 30 minutes. They tracked the costs to recharge and the time it took. It's accurate.

They were not commuting, so you can't compare your experiences to anyone making a long trip through multiple states and needing to pay for power.
Commuting, it makes total sense. If we weren't retired, I'd seriously look into some sort of electric power, be it a 4xe, or a pure electric like a Tesla. It would save us a ton in the long run. Depending on the vehicle we used, we had to fill up either every week, or every two weeks.
And in Iowa, electric power is cheap. We're all electric and we get a huge discount on any power used over xxxx Kilowatt-hours.
Our problem is that it's not reliable, so there would be times I would have to go out to fire up our generator to supply power to recharge the car, and go through 7 gallons of gas every few hours. There goes the savings.............

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Howdy - I don't own one, but have many colleagues that do have them here in Austin. All with various flavors of Tesla. Their feedback has been very useful and insightful for me. First, they all love the fact that our employer provides charging stations for free, which they take full advantage of. Second, if they take a day trip to Houston or Dallas, they take an ICE vehicle not their EV due to the charging inconvenience. It gets a tad warm here in the summer, and they've provided feedback that the A/C running to keep the batteries from overheating in the summer sun in the parking lot really makes for logistic challenges when planning a trip - hence their happyness with the fact our employer provides charging stations.

Their general take is "the good parts are good" but "there are not-so-good parts" that need to be understood up front before buying one. Which, honestly, is close to the same thing I tell folks who see my JT or my wife's JLU and want to get one.

Any type or combination of electric, hybrid, whatever, has its place and that place will likely grow.
My point was that - it can't be for everyone, especially now.
Those people had to use a phone app to locate charging stations. Quick charges were few and far between. So on a 2,000 mile trip, you have to plan wisely - or take the gas/diesel powered vehicle.
Imagine having 100 miles left, the next charging station is 75 miles away - and you get there and it's either down, in use, or there's some other problem and the next one is 250 miles away, or at a business that's closed.
The reality is that for long drives - you have to plot your course, make sure the charging stations are within reach, and that you have time to wait. As they pointed out, some of them took hours.
There are over 200 in Iowa - mostly along I35 and I80, or the metro areas. 80 of those are in Polk and Johnson counties!) That leaves the rest of Iowa with about 120 stations. So avoid NW Iowa where it actually is flat and you won't get regeneration to speak of.
Nebraska, where a lot of land is very flat, very little regeneration - only 139 charging stations - likely all around Lincoln, Omaha, and the metro areas. So avoid driving through NE with an EV.

For shopping, commuting, general running around, they are great. For long trips, towing, rural areas, not so great.
That's my only real point - they have places where they are a perfect fit. I'd have some form of electric if I was not retired. They are a pain for long trips - charging can take very long times, depending. The high speed charging places, as some have found out, aren't all that high speed in every case. People have found what should take 30 minutes took over an hour - or more.

 

[WILDHOBO]

Cruise was unavailable. They were trying to tweak up the remaining distance gauge, reducing electric use by turning the wipers down, turning off cabin cooling and so forth. It's accurate. They were driving it, they were trying to make the next charge station and at one point, the next station was farther than what their dash told them they had in distance. So, if you are 50 miles from a gas station, your truck tells you that you have 35 miles left on that tank, do you not try to tweak your speed or the load on the electric systems or take other moves to try to squeeze out another few miles? That's what they were doing. That Kia told them they had xx miles left. The next station was farther away than what they had. It told them cruise was not available. I didn't catch the reason
I would have personally done pretty much what they did - shut down as many things as possible to conserve power.
I've been in the situation where the next gas station was farther than expected due to road construction - I turned off accessories, AC, slowed my speed, and made it (was with my Chevy, and that thing was damned accurate on miles remaining - you didn't second-guess that thing)

This was a Kia, so to say it operates exactly the same as any vehicle someone else has had may not be accurate.




LOL - you didn't read it, did you? I was quoting the cost they tracked to charge along the trip they took!! No one was saying it was the cost to charge at home. Even they said it would be cheaper to charge at home. When you are driving a full day, you find charging stations using at app like they did, and you PAY. Charging along the way isn't free.
I calculated what they HAD TO PAY (because electric charge stations cost you money just like gas at a gas station - you plug in, you pay) and I figured what our vehicles would have used in gas along that route, estimate, of course, and used what they PAID out of pocket, and yes, I could have saved half a day and only paid 200 more.


So, you are comparing a trip on the road to the cost to charge at your home? You believe you can drive 2,000 miles and not need a charging station?
I've driven KS and NE many times, and trust me, there won't be any regeneration on many of their highways. Flat, you can see for so many miles, it's crazy. Even in chunks of Indiana, you won't be going down hill much at all. There are states where you drive for 2 hours and not really go down a hill.

Anyway, I'd love to see how you could drive 2,000 miles and never need a charging station - or where you drive that the charging stations are free to use and charge in 30 minutes. They tracked the costs to recharge and the time it took. It's accurate.

They were not commuting, so you can't compare your experiences to anyone making a long trip through multiple states and needing to pay for power.
Commuting, it makes total sense. If we weren't retired, I'd seriously look into some sort of electric power, be it a 4xe, or a pure electric like a Tesla. It would save us a ton in the long run. Depending on the vehicle we used, we had to fill up either every week, or every two weeks.
And in Iowa, electric power is cheap. We're all electric and we get a huge discount on any power used over xxxx Kilowatt-hours.
Our problem is that it's not reliable, so there would be times I would have to go out to fire up our generator to supply power to recharge the car, and go through 7 gallons of gas every few hours. There goes the savings.............

The idea that a 2000 mile drive is a test of whether electric works or not is dumb. Which is probably why Fox News did it. I replied to your statements as if they were general facts about EV’s, not facts about their unrealistic test, designed for ratings and to start discussions like this. Most EV’s and PHEV’s don’t disable things like cruise control, but Kia is the bottom of the barrel. Obviously PHEV is a better choice for longer than a couple hundred mile drives. And no, I wasted not a single moment of my time reading Fox News commentary. I’d like to see an actual apples to apples comparison. Meaning one PHEV suv against one of your examples, say a Cherokee, for the same 2000 mile drive. Guess which one will get there faster. Guess which one will cost far less?

 

[bleda2002]

We have a 4xe wrangler. It's great in that you get the best of both worlds. Lots of power cheap around town, absolutely shit on the highway (13-14mpg) though which is the trade off for having 30+ mpg around town on heavy aggressive 35s with a 2 inch lift, steel bumpers, winch etc.

With that said, I'd not buy a fully electric EV unless it's my spare car just for commuting. For around town up to the 175-225 miles a day they're fantastic, they will fit 90% of the trips people need to do pretty readily. I still need something for the other 10% of the trips where I tow, road trip, or haul things.

 

[MPMB]

Most EV’s and PHEV’s don’t disable things like cruise control, but Kia is the bottom of the barrel.

Hardly accurate. They may be newer to the hybrid/EV world, but they're anything but bottom of the barrel.

Until it's possible to recharge an EV in 10 mintues or less, at a "gas" station, with a charger density of 1/2 current gas stations (I suppose we'll have to go back to calling them service stations), it's not going to be adopted. It will be drug along, painstakingly slow and expensively.

And guess what? Once we get to that critical mass point, service stations (and energy companies) are going to jack the prices up to make up for all that "lost" revenue from oil & gas (Phillips Machine example: ).

 

[texanjeeper]

Don't forget the fact that our power grid is in no position to allow every household to install the power capability for charging even one EV car. The grids nationwide would be overloaded almost immediately. I'd say there is about 10 years worth of upgrading and boosting up the capabilities of the grid, and I think that estimate is kind. It may be more like 20 years.

Either way, I can't see ever owning an EV vehicle. To me, it's the biggest boondoggle that ever came down the pike. You're burning coal to make that electricity, which is dirtier than the cars that burn gasoline. This is a clear example of people and government not thinking things through.

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