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I've followed this for decades. I also don't know what all the batteries from electric cars are doing to landfills.
They aren't going into landfills and if you've followed this for decades, you'd know that. LI batteries are lasting decades and if they do lose power enough to not be useful for EVs, then they are either recycled or used in commercial battery backup systems.
I've followed this for decades. There's nothing that says electric is better than gas.
To me, one of the best things about an EV is that it can use many different sources of energy. Our current transportation system depends almost entirely on petroleum. A disruption to the supply and/or price of this commodity can wreck our economy, plus it gives a lot of power to nations that are not so friendly to the U.S.
EV can effectively run on natural gas, wind, nuclear, hydro, solar, coal, etc.
Heck, I have no problem passing even in my little SparkEV. The 327 lb-ft of torque is helpful.
Yes, I can pull away at any stoplight with over 500 HP and nearly 500 lb-ft of torque at 0 rpm - no turbos to spool up or gears to shift makes it very easy to pass almost anyone short of a few supercars or another Tesla.
I still prefer to use gas rather than finding a charging station and waiting. I'm not comfortable with the idea of being stranded somewhere far from a charging station.
I've followed this for decades. There's nothing that says electric is better than gas. The biggest gas issue is it's created by gas companies (and ump has shares in Keystone) so I don't know what's real (except ethanol is a joke) anymore. I also don't know what all the batteries from electric cars are doing to landfills. While I don't have long on this earth, I don't want to leave it totally polluted for generations to come so I'm always looking for a proven alternative.
The proven alternative is living in a dense, mixed-use neighborhood where almost everything is accessible by walking and there is enough density to support frequent mass transit.
As mentioned earlier, one of the main advantages of electric is that there is a wide variety of ways to generate electricity. Most electricity is done through some kind of turbine and that can be spun with everything from wind to water to using any variety of fossil fuels to generate steam to turn turbines. Aside from mechanically generating electricity, there’s also photovoltaic processes like what’s used in solar panels or electrochemical processes like how fuel cells work or chemical battery storage. It’s the more versatile tool.
On top of that, motors are essentially generators as well which allows electric vehicles to brake via recapturing the kinetic energy of the car which lessens brake wear while converting that kinetic energy into electricity for the car to use as opposed to just traditional friction braking that converts that kinetic energy into waste heat and physical abrasion of the brake material.
The battery issue isn’t too bad—there’s pretty decent second-use applications and recycling isn’t the same kind of pain for EVs as it is for small electronic devices because each EV is a dense collection of battery cells which makes it more worthwhile to recycle.
Again though, building cities, towns, and villages for walking as the primary means of getting around conveniently is heads and shoulders better for the environment than a switch from ICE vehicles to EVs and this doesn’t have to be Manhattan or Hong Kong kind of density as there’s a massive variety of ways to build mixed-use and dense enough environments that’s conducive to walking as the main mode of getting around without going full-on concrete jungle.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-22-2020 at 07:31 PM..
A bottom of the range Tesla costs about $US60,000 here.
This leads us to the core of the problem. After 8-ish years the Tesla battery needs to be replaced at about $7500. Find an 8 year old Corolla that needs a $7500 repair and try to sell it. A junk dealer might give you a few hundred for it. The $7500 figure only assumes the battery is the problem. The electric motors and other components might be shot too, could it be possible that some used EVs will have no value and might require pay for disposal/recycling?
Teslas might be popular new car purchases but this market hasn't yet run it's course to find out if older used Teslas have any trade-in value beyond a token gesture.
Meanwhile my 1995 Dodge Dakota still running great on our carbon-negative farm. Maybe it will still be running in another 10 years. A Tesla battery straight from the factory today.... not so much.
Internal combustion engines AND EVs have been around for over 100 years. EV's are not a new concept. They just keep getting repackaged (and failing) decade after decade. Eventually their time will come.
Last edited by terracore; 01-22-2020 at 08:37 PM..
Because I love ICEs from the engine sound to a sweet exhaust to the handling & performance. Hell you can get a Miata to do 30 city / 40 highway if driven appropriately and way more fun than any Tesla. I prefer to shift my own gears and drive myself thank you very much.
Wow, a LOT of misinformation, fear and fallacies in this thread. I'd have to spend a lot of time quoting and responding to cover it all. Suffice it to say, MOST of you really don't know much about EVs.
EV car batteries are not ending up in landfills. The few that need replacing tend to be recycled or end up in commercial battery back up systems. Lithium "mining' is primarily in evaporative brine ponds that are no worse for the environment than salt water lakes. Cobalt is definitely an issue, with it coming primarily from the Congo, but we're using less and less of that (and the bulk of it is going into portable tools and laptop/phone batteries. EVs are really a drop in the bucket when it comes to cobalt use). There's a lot of research in how to use less cobalt in the future, and possibly do away with it altogether. Many EVs are using recycled steel and other materials in their construction and are no worse, if not better than the manufacturing of any other car.
Charging stations are all over the place (if you look on apps like PlugShare you get to see all of them). But they don't need to be, and really shouldn't be thought of the same way as a gas station. Unlike a gas car, you don't have to go somewhere ELSE to fill it up, and you don't need to do it every week or two. You start each day with a full tank. AND, there's no reason to carry around huge capacity for the 2% of the time you MIGHT need it. That's like thinking you need an F250 to do a home depot run once every 6 months.
That picture of ONE Tesla supercharging station with backups was on a rare Holiday weekend and there were other charging stations fairly close by, but the lazy idiots in line didn't WANT to go to them. 99.99% of the time, there are no lines. I've never encountered one.
MOST people have a place to put a charging station, and apartments/condos are coming on board (slowly, to be sure, but there are incentives being put out there for them). Most people do NOT live in apartments or condos.
Most people drive less than 30 miles a day. MOST households have two or more cars already. MOST people could get along very well with even a first gen EV as a commuter, while second gen cars like the Bolt or Kona EV would suite even more as primary cars.
If you DO drive a LOT and live in an apartment, you're really an outlier and definitely get something else. Again, you wouldn't get a Golf for a family of 7, a Camry to tow a 4 horse trailer, or an F350 for a single person commuter.
Used EVs are fairly cheap, unless it's a Tesla. Used Teslas are holding their value quite well. Someone said they got an $18k used Camry and there are no used EVs at that price point. There are. Hell, off lease Bolts with the 238 mile range are in that price range. And used Focus EVs and Fiat 500es and Spark EVs are fun and under $10k. e-Golfs and BMW i3s are a tad bit more (in the $12-15k range). But I bought a NEW 2020 Bolt for $24k out the door without tax incentives (and the 2020s come with a 259 mile range). It has 200 hp and 266 lb ft of torque and is essentially a futuristic "hot hatch," quite quick and nimble with the low CG making it fun to drive, like most EVs tend to be (which is the primary reason I bought the Bolt and the Volt before it). The price point is nearly $10k under the national average new car price.
Most of you have not even tried one yet. I suggest you do, if only to be better informed.
The cars charge overnight when it is off peak. Electric companies don't charge MORE for EVs, they tend to charge LESS and encourage people to charge them during off peak hours when plants are idle, as it makes the whole system more efficient. The local electric company even paid for my L2 charging station to be put in. A lot of people I know out west with EVs use solar to charge their cars (though the battery storage systems that come with the solar install). And that's part of the beauty of fueling an EV: they are source agnostic, meaning they can use any electrical source for power, from coal fired plants (which are going away) to nuclear and solar and wind and any other new tech that comes along. The sources of power are getting cleaner every year, too, and are already orders of magnitude cleaner than a few hundred million individual point sources (individual ICE cars) that are getting dirtier every year you use them. An EV gets cleaner every year you use it.
Are the EVs on the market perfect yet? No. No car is 100% perfect for 100% of the potential use cases out there. But they are already useful for most people, if people were realistic about their use cases. Even cheap off lease used ones. And again, they tend to be fun to drive with max torque coming in right off "idle" and the low CG due to low battery placement making them feel quite nimble (even though they do tend to weigh more).
Personally, I have NEVER seen a charging station- yet people that say, "charging stations are everywhere" HAHAHAHAHA!
Now, gas stations . . . . . they are everywhere. And it only takes 1.5 minutes to "recharge".
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