OT: Electric Vehicles
I am not an engineer, but I know that UofM had a pretty strong automotive engineering program back in the day. There also have been posts here the last couple years about self-driving cars. Like most Americans, I have not yet moved to an all-electric vehicle, although that day is coming. We own a Prius, and it sure beats the Honda Pilot for gas mileage.
I have seen much more on electric vehicles in the media, and in TV ads, and on the road. To wit,
- Yesterday in the New York Times there was a piece highlighting the surge in sales of all electric vehicles. LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/business/energy-environment/electric-cars-vehicles.html?searchResultPosition=1
- Watching the Olympics, and pretty much any TV, there are ads and more ads for electric vehicles.
- Simply driving on the turnpike between Chicago and Cleveland, I've seen a vast increase in the number of charging stations, and I certainly am seeing more Tesla branded cars on the road. I personally know someone working for Rivian here in Illinois.
However, I've also seen several contrarian things.
- One video segment I watched suggests that the energy and raw material it takes to build an all electric vehicle wipes out much of the gain in reducing emissions.
- Another suggest that the cost of replacement batteries is so high that it will create problems 8 years after purchase, with a high cost to replace batteries not holding a charge any more.
- And I also am given to understand that the recycling of batteries is a difficult process, and what to do with old batteries will be a difficult problem.
- Lastly, there is also a question about what to do when the energy grid goes down. What happens if you live in an area where tornados have decimated communities? How do you charge your car when there all the charging stations are wiped out?
I'd love to hear from automotive engineers, from environmental engineers, from people working for GM or Ford or Tesla or Rivian or someone else in the business. And I'd be perfectly happy with links to good long form journalism pieces about electric vehicles. Given the long wait, and the high cost, I'm guessing I won't do anything any time soon. But I'd like to start thinking more about this.
February 11th, 2022 at 3:45 PM ^
4. There is enough oil left in the ground and not produced. Some part is lack of technology. Some part is just how geology works. There is enough oil to sustain our civilization as we know it now. "eventually" in this case is a long time.
Disclaimer: I work in the fossil fuel industry. I had no idea about the oil extraction process before joining.
February 11th, 2022 at 1:13 AM ^
I don't get all the people who say nuclear power is clean. It most certainly is not! ALL of the worlds reactors are fission based. The used fuel rods stay dangerously radioactive for 10,000 - 50,000 years(or more.) Storing them is a huge concern. With the way language and writing change, how do you put warnings that people of the future could understand? They are still trying to figure that one out.
The only clean nuclear energy is Fusion based. It's the same thing how the sun produces energy. Unfortunately the challenges are huge and fusion technology is a long ways off.
All that being said I am for EV.
February 11th, 2022 at 2:12 AM ^
I highly recommend watching this: Thorium 2011 documentary.
PS: I am a huge fan of Rush.
February 11th, 2022 at 9:03 AM ^
When an electric vehicle becomes as rock solid, dependable, easy maintenance and long lasting as a Toyota truck, I will be interested. Until then it’s Toyota trucks and SUV’s for me.
February 11th, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^
Wait no longer, that happened years ago.
February 12th, 2022 at 10:47 AM ^
Did I mention relatively affordable on the used market for a quality vehicle that has at least 100,000+ miles of driving left on it? Off road capabitly?
…And how much does a new battery cost after 8 years as OP mentioned? I know for sure the Prius ones run about $8000, which is more than replacing an engine or trans, often both. Toyota engines and transmissions, with some routine maintenance commonly go over 400,000 miles, and often times 30-35 years. When you are someone who does the daily driving that a construction contractor does, but you don’t want to get a new vehicle every 5-7 years, you want a vehicle like that.
Different strokes for different folks is what this always comes to. Forcing everyone to go electric will never go well, or be reasonable. I’m a guy who looks for a Toyota on the used market anywhere between 100-200k miles, because I know, most of the time if they simply changed the oil, that means the vehicle is likely no more than half life and still has about 10 usable years on it….and I can usually afford to pay cash for those, not having to be locked into an interest collecting car payment, or the pricey monthly commitment of a leased vehicle.
Again, different strokes for different folks. Enjoy your electric vehicle.
February 11th, 2022 at 9:07 AM ^
Whatever happened to the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Is Toyota still selling them in California?
February 11th, 2022 at 11:05 AM ^
Yes, but hydrogen is inherently not efficient as a fuel source (the physics of producing, distributing, and converting to electricity in the fuel cell are worse than ICE or BEV) and requires a completely new more complicated fuel infrastructure than gas stations or EVs (distribution is largely solved since there's electricity near essentially all roads, charging stations are the gap). It might work for niche use cases but is unlikely to be a mass consumer technology.
February 11th, 2022 at 9:18 AM ^
Lots of responses & links here, so I’ll just throw in my own personal experience. Bought a Tesla Model S in March of 2013. Still driving it, still love it. Longest trip I’ve driven it is about 200 miles, but I drive it every day to work. I set it to charge to 80% capacity every night, and I honestly have not noticed any range degradation over 9 years. The car has only required minimal maintenance, and only a minor air conditioner repair and upgrades to the electronics (3G was phased out for LTE) over the life of the car. Upfront cost was high, but the cost of ownership has been extremely low. No oil changes, etc.
Everyone asks about my electric bill: I always charge at night and immediately got a time-aware electric meter (different rates for different times of day), so my electricity bill stayed more or less the same, which means that I’ve basically made my fuel free.
I realize that not everyone has had the same experience with EV’s, but mine has been overwhelmingly positive. Full disclosure: my wife drives an ICE SUV, so perhaps my savings/environmental gains are wiped out by her, but I’m still very happy to drive what I drive. I agree that long road trips would present a challenge: you could absolutely do it, but you’d need to plan it out (the car will do it for you, actually), and be prepared to spend more time at the Superchargers (which are always near shops, restaurants, etc., but still, not time spent reaching your destination).
February 11th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
In general if you're interested in car and EV engineering, I recommend the Munro Live youtube channel. Munro owns and automotive and consumer appliance engineering consulting company and posts video tear downs and reviews of many different vehicles. He tends to look at more EVs since that's where the new engineering problems are in the industry.
February 11th, 2022 at 11:30 AM ^
Right, Sandy Munro is simply an icon of automotive engineering in Detroit. He’s the guy you should be listening to if you want to learn about BEV technology, how it compares to ICE technology, and the design and build quality of the various BEV manufacturers. Go watch his YouTube videos…they’re eye opening. I watched his tear down videos of the Tesla Model 3 back in early 2018, then I bought the car. Best car purchase I’ve ever made.
February 11th, 2022 at 8:47 PM ^
Put me down for another endorsement for Sandy Munro. I'm not an automotive expert, but he is, and he has stated that Tesla is years ahead of the competition.
February 11th, 2022 at 12:12 PM ^
Tesla long ago considered the argument of "yeah but there's still pollution in making it, and the electricity to power it" and calculated equivalent mpg. Factoring in the pollution in producing, shipping, and powering the vehicle, they run a little over 100 mpg on average.
February 11th, 2022 at 12:24 PM ^
I'm an owner of a 2013 Chevy Volt. Only 41K miles on it, as I work from home and use it mostly for personal trips and sometimes business trips. Have used about 240 gallons of gas since I have owned it, which is incredible if you think about it. (it's a hybrid) We live in So Cal so the lack of cold helps us. And I don't take a lot of long car trips, but if we do, we take the wife's Subaru due to its bigger size.
Other than a relatively small repair covered under the warranty, it's been trouble free. No brakes needed (mechanics laugh when I ask them to check the brakes, which almost never wear) Only had to add a set of tires for $500 and about 10 oil changes. Best car I have owned and I'm never going back to an ICE. I will keep this car in the family by giving it to my oldest daughter to drive when home from college over the summer. I charge my car at night, and we have 100% renewables selected as our electricity election through our local utility.
My Tesla 3 is on order and have been waiting for the federal tax credit which is looking less and less likely. Price on the car is $39K before any California or Federal rebates or credits. It's a base model, but still has everything I want and goes 0-60 in 5.7 secs. Hard to believe there is anything out there that's comparable for the price.
I know there are a number of doubters out there, but how many EV drivers here or anywhere else say they're going back to an ICE? EVs aren't for everybody, but for many people with commutes of 50 miles or even more, they seem to work well.
February 11th, 2022 at 12:25 PM ^
Another actual BEV owner here…I own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range (single motor, RWD). It’s original range was 310 miles, and now after 59,000 miles it’s still charging to 300 miles. I’m originally from metro Detroit and am a UM alum, and I still read the Detroit News Auto section regularly, despite living on the West Coast since the 80’s. It’s been interesting, to say the least, to watch the “big three” respond to the revolution in the auto industry caused by Elon Musk with that crazy startup, Tesla, over the last ten years. First denial, then panic, as Ford and GM realized they had better get in the game before falling too far behind. Now Tesla is pumping out a million cars a year worldwide, has built out the Supercharger charging network across the US Europe and China, and even Joe Biden and Car and Driver magazine are finally acknowledging that a startup American car company exists, whose unmodified vehicles out perform and out-fun classic legacy ICE “noise-makers” like the Mustang, Dodge Charger, and the BMW 3 Series.
Here’s the biggest takeaway for me after owning and driving my BEV for three and a half years: in addition to being much more fun to drive, it’s the TCO (total cost of ownership) that is night and day compared to ICE vehicles. The total maintenance on my Model 3 since July, 2018 consists of a set of tires at 35K miles, two cabin air filters, and a new set of windshield wipers…that’s it! Here’s a TCO comparison for you: I have a season pass at a local ski resort here in SoCal, located 95 miles away and 6600 vertical feet higher than where I live (at sea level). I can drive round trip to the ski resort on a single charge with 60-70 miles range remaining when I return. I charge in my garage overnight at $.09/kWh, using SDG&E’s tiered rates for EV owners, which is dirt cheap. I estimate my round trip costs no more than $8, whereas for my 2022 Hyundai Palisade, that same round trip costs about $45. And if you’re wondering how I like the Palisade, it’s fine, a great car, but it’s my wife’s car and we hardly ever drive it (we got it to tow my little boat, and because we needed a seven passenger vehicle when the grandkids come to town). After six months the Palisade still has less than two thousand miles on it, because we prefer to drive the BEV…it’s much cheaper and more fun to drive!
February 11th, 2022 at 1:37 PM ^
Most of the negativity is driven by the oil industry and reports funded by them and they take very negative assumptions about learning/scale curves. Electricity will replace ICE cars within 20 years. Maybe something will replace electricity in another 20-40 years. We own 2 fully electric vehicles and wouldn’t consider going back. We even go on fairly long road trips in our Tesla Model Y. In December we toured the Powder highway (cold and mountainous) and we were able to go about 200 miles per charge. And there was only one time I was a little stressed about range. Once we hit the pass and came down the other side, the anxiety disappeared thanks to regenerative breaking.
February 11th, 2022 at 8:57 PM ^
I think within 5 years EVs will outsell ICE. Only people buying ICE after that are those with specific use cases and idiots.
February 12th, 2022 at 11:01 AM ^
People like you, man, people like you
February 11th, 2022 at 2:02 PM ^
Lots of interesting information and commentary on this thread. We bought a 2021 Kia Niro plug-in EV just before Christmas. It's a great car and we love it. Cost around $40K and with the federal and local rebates it'll have cost around $32K. We spent $635 on a level 2 charger and $910 for an electrician to make the necessary upgrades, including installation of an outlet in the garage.
It's only been 6 weeks but the major limitation is the limited availability of level 2 chargers away from home. You can find them but they require a fair amount of time to full charge (6-8 hours) and they cost a little bit of money. By comparison, Tesla superchargers are seemingly everywhere, even on very rural patches of interstate here in the upper midwest. They take an hour (+/-) to fully charge which makes it very reasonable to take Teslas on longer road trips. Non-Tesla EV's are not compatible with Tesla superchargers so for us the Niro is a local/errand/commuter vehicle.
No regrets, we love it, and things will improve. Biden just announced $5B in available funds yesterday for states to begin building out their non-Tesla charging networks. Hopefully that spurs major progress. But in the meantime we'll take one of our gas powered vehicles when going out of town.
February 11th, 2022 at 5:27 PM ^
Just to clarify how using the Tesla Supercharger network works, the charging sites are typically spaced about two hundred miles apart on the interstate highway system. So for a cross-country road trip, the only time you’d ever have a full charge is starting from your garage on day one. Thereafter, the process consists of driving three hours (to 15% charge level) to the next charging station and charging to 80%. With Tesla’s gen-3 250 kWh superchargers, charging from 15% to 80% takes fifteen minutes, which is a perfect amount of time to go piss and then get some food and coffee. And the Supercharger sites are all located in strip mall parking lots or shopping centers where all of that is easily accomplished. My wife and I did a 9000 mile road trip all over the US in 2019, and it was incredibly easy and fun, thanks to the Supercharger network, which is a huge differentiator.
February 11th, 2022 at 6:46 PM ^
I’m cheap. I buy your grandpas 15 year old caddie that has 60-80k on it for $3500-$4000 and drive them until 300k or they die. I can’t stand small cars.
February 11th, 2022 at 9:05 PM ^
"I’m cheap. I buy your grandpas 15 year old caddie that has 60-80k on it for $3500-$4000 and drive them until 300k or they die."
While your upfront cost is much cheaper than an EV, your operating costs and maintenance are going to eat heavily into those savings.
"I can’t stand small cars."
Not all EVs are small.
February 12th, 2022 at 7:41 AM ^
Compared to old caddies and Lincoln’s they are