So what happens to those mileage numbers when you live up in North? Battery performance in the cold is a problem
It's not enough of a problem to make it more expensive than gas.
And if you want to run the heater so you don't freeze too death and/or the window defroster so you can actually see to drive you can cut all those range numbers in half. Or how about down South, running the AC when it's 110-120F outside?
Not even close. You're too used to driving cars with horrible inefficient A/C compressors and resistive heat. Most decent electric cars use variable speed heat pumps. I only have technical data on the Prius Prime, which draws about 1.5A from the 350V battery (525W) when heating is set to 77°F. You'd have to run the heat for about a 2.5 days straight to run a 60 kWh battery down to half capacity. During a one-hour drive it would only use an extra 0.8% of your charge. The A/C set to 68°F used about the same power (it is a heat pump, after all).
The environmental impact of manufacturing electric cars is higher than IC cars, and there are parts that cannot be recycled and would generate large amounts of toxic waste.
It's true, but over the life of the car the total environmental impact is less because of the efficiency of electrical power. There are some places that use a lot of coal power where the pollution savings are minimal at best, but on average it's overwhelmed by the places that have a lot of hydro, nuclear, wind, or solar power.
Further, in places that are already having trouble just keeping the lights on (cough, California, cough), what do you think is going to happen to your "pennies per mile", "Electricity is a cheaper fuel than gas." argument,
Still holds. California hasn't had a blackout due to a shortage of power in over 20 years. The blackouts they do today are on purpose to prevent downed wires from starting fires. Gas is expensive enough in California ($4.60 right now) that even expensive electricity isn't more expensive than gas. Electricity would have to cost $0.33/kWh overnight to cost more than gas there. Although, utilities are getting smart and noticing that as more people drive electric to save money they are boosting prices to capture those savings from the consumer.
You think they have a problem with brownouts and rolling blackouts now?
No. That only happened one day in the last 20 years, and that was due to a couple shitty natural gas plants that broke down when they tried to fire up for peak load. The last time the rolling blackouts happened was primarily due to Enron's market manipulation.
What happens when people have to face the very real economic choice between running the home heater or AC, or charging the car that night so they can go to work in the morning. You know, so they can pay off the $30,000 loan on that "cheaper" electric car?
The same thing that happens if they're so poor they have to decide between filling the car up with gas or running the home AC.
Uh-huh. Pull the other one, It's got bells on it.
When you have enough outages to warrant it's own website, like the San Francisco street turd tracker ap?
https://poweroutage.us/area/state/california https://www.sce.com/outage-center/check-outage-status
"The same thing that happens if they're so poor they have to decide between filling the car up with gas or running the home AC."
Only it's not going to be just poor people is it? It's going to be everybody.
What about the people who don't like to fly but prefer to drive and enjoy the freedom of being able to get into the car and drive anywhere in the continental US without stopping every 50 miles to spend time recharging? Electric cars are just another movement control measure.
"C'mon man! Who really needs to drive more that 25 miles from home!"
When you have enough outages to warrant it's own website, like the San Francisco street turd tracker ap?
You know that page was a warning of things to come ... things that didn't come.
That's the number of people out in the state for any reason, not brown outs or rolling blackouts. California is currently at 0.035% of customers out. Some other states:
- Louisiana 0.0525%
- Minnesota 0.0609%
- South Dakota 0.1053%
- New Hampshire 0.1015%
- Vermont 1.4833%
Only it's not going to be just poor people is it? It's going to be everybody.
Why do you feel like it's different to pay for electricity than it is to pay for gas? It's all dollars, buddy. If you can't afford $50 worth of electricity, you can't afford $50 worth of gas.
What about the people who don't like to fly but prefer to drive and enjoy the freedom of being able to get into the car and drive anywhere in the continental US without stopping every 50 miles to spend time recharging?
You mean every 250 miles. That's a special use case, anyway. I take more road trips than anyone I know, and only about 5% of the miles I drive any given year are road trip miles. It's stupid to spend $3,000 extra on fuel every year to avoid paying $250 for a rental once or twice a year.
Electric cars are just another movement control measure.
There's nothing about electric cars that makes them more easily controllable than gas cars. In fact, it's more difficult to control because anybody with solar panels can fuel up. How many people have refineries on their roofs?
"C'mon man! Who really needs to drive more that
25250 miles from home without stopping for 30 minutes!"
FTFY
I admire you continued enthusiasm. But I am also old enough to know better. I was one of the first to consider adopting an electric vehicle and have been watching this technology since it first started to become commercially mature as a serious commercial product for the non-niche consumer. I would really like for your rosy view of the energy future of the US to be true.
They have yet to sufficiently address the energy production/delivery/density problems sufficiently to put my concerns to rest. And, unfortunately, in the face of the current direction of energy policy in this country, it doesn't look like they are going to in time for this to be a viable alternative to IC in our lifetimes.
(post is archived)