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Not in the US, at least. Chinese EVs and autos in general wont be coming here. i doubt any govt agency would approve their importation or setting up shop here. there is strong bipartisan anti China business stance for the past several years among the house and senate and executive branch. This will continue as the US seeks to stop China's development in all areas.
Psst - there have been Chinese built cars sold in the US for about a decade now. Nobody is stopping their importation.
How many EVs were stranded on I95 overnight near DC?
If there is one angle on EVs that is not been worked out, it’s being stranded out on an interstate. No truck or resupply will get them out of the road. Paperweight would be a nice term.
How many EVs were stranded on I95 overnight near DC?
If there is one angle on EVs that is not been worked out, it’s being stranded out on an interstate. No truck or resupply will get them out of the road. Paperweight would be a nice term.
How many? Did they do a count? There were supposedly hundreds of vehicles stranded for many, many hours and NOVA is a fairly wealthy area so I assume there were at least a few.
As for whether it's worse to be in an ICE vehicle or an EV in that situation, it'll depend on what kind of EV it is. Power drain for maintaining a warm temperature in freezing weather is generally going to be pretty low compared to what's eaten by driving at fast speeds. Remember, aerodynamic drag at highway speeds is usually the largest drain followed by rolling resistance--the heating and cooling are significant, but very much secondary for most recently released EVs in the US. If you're stranded, you're certainly not going at highway speeds very much.
Here's a test done with what's the most popular EV in the US, a Tesla Model 3, done in a freezing Norwegian winter while keeping the cabin at ~23/26 C (~73/79 F) which is a pretty reasonable cabin temperature starting at 100% charge and with other subsystems on like the infotainment, lights when dark, window defrosters, and auxiliary devices plugged in for livestreaming the entire test (though these are generally even a lower tier than climate control in terms of power consumption). He doesn't stay in the vehicle as he doesn't want his body heat to contribute to this, and he also opens and closes the door multiple times throughout as he didn't want to wait the full 71 hours and 42 minutes before the traction battery drained and all that was left was the 12V automotive battery (which means your infotainment system and lights still work, but you vehicle will no longer move unless you charge it) which is about 5X as long as what happened in Virginia:
Mind you, this isn't even close to the largest battery for an EV in production today which can get a lot larger as in close to 2X and 3X larger. This also should be expected since these vehicles sometimes have camp modes since you don't have to idle your car and blow exhaust or make noise to have it power the heater and people do overnight camping with these vehicles as in sleeping inside these things. One thing to note is that the highest EV adoption rate country in the world is Norway, which while it doesn't have the coldest winters in the world, does actually have pretty cold winters due to its rather northerly location. Also note that most people with EVs charge at home or work so chances are you start your trip with a pretty well filled "tank".
As for an ICE vehicle, that will also depend on the sort of vehicle and what your habits are in terms of when you fill up. An ICE vehicle is pretty dependent on running the engine to warm things, but running the engine eats more power than is necessary to provide enough heat to warm the cabin as internal combustion engines are quite inefficient.
Also a bit curious about how this is specific to Chinese EVs.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-04-2022 at 08:43 PM..
The real long term remedy, barring a technological breakthrough, is to return to electric traction rail.
Steel wheel on steel rail has the lowest co:efficient of rolling resistance, saving 90-95% of the energy, compared to a pneumatic tire on pavement vehicle (regardless of power plant).
And electric powered trains can use regenerative braking and save even more.
Can't beat the Laws of Physics.
But that has never stopped politicians before.
How many EVs were stranded on I95 overnight near DC?
If there is one angle on EVs that is not been worked out, it’s being stranded out on an interstate. No truck or resupply will get them out of the road. Paperweight would be a nice term.
So if an EV had the same amount of "energy" left in the "tank" as an ICE vehicle, I would rather be in the EV than worrying about CO leaking into the cabin.
This situation would also be a great test for the Blink Mobile EV Charger (or similar) that brings a charge to you.
I really don't have a dog in this fight. Of course I want American car companies to do well. But I am not going to just ignore realities if other automakers are producing compelling alternatives. Japanese products were derided here after World War II, and some of that may have been due to a need to develop them further, and some of it may have been simply prejudice. In any case, Japanese products are world class today and that's been true for decades. Korean products faced skepticism 20 years ago, but they have been improving rapidly and today, brands like LG, Samsung, Hyundai and Kia have a lot of credibility and continue to raise their game. I don't see any fundamental reason that Chinese products can't rival those from other nations.
Tesla is still the leader in the EV space, but we have yet to see if the Big Three can really succeed there. So far, Ford seems to have the most on the ball out of these Detroit automakers. GM seems to be taking its time and Chrysler/Stellantis still seem to be sleeping, which can't be good. I've heard enough about how the older companies will win with their "experience" - that's what their fan-boys said for years. If they don't even do anything until Tesla has the lead, and then they move slowly and produce half---ed results... meanwhile Tesla is already on to their next generation batteries and next generation vehicles - then it's actually Tesla who has the experience, not the legacy automakers - because they got out there first and they have faster innovation cycles - they're gaining the experience and moving on to the next advances while some of the other companies are still getting going. I hope they can make this pivot, but the Big 3 may be too slow and cautious to keep pace. A proud history only goes so far. I know that first-hand, I worked at Kodak in the mid-90s, and for many decades they had a remarkable dominance of photographic products - far greater than any of the Big 3 automakers ever did. When I worked there, they still had a lot of very smart people there, but they had a level of arrogance that held them back, and they were slow to pivot to full-bore effort in digital imaging, and even though they were actually the pioneers there, management was too conservative and didn't want to move too fast, they wanted to stick with the old cash cow, and then before they knew it, they were left in the dust by faster moving tech companies and after a long decline, collapsed. I am reminded of Kodak when I see the Big 3 moving slowly and a lot of confident pronouncements about their immense experience with ICE vehicles being enough to take them into the next era with more dominance. That's arrogance, complacency, and it's wrong, wrong thinking. Your past doesn't guarantee your future.
NIO seems to have a lot of buzz these days out of China. It will be interesting to see where these Chinese firms can get to, in another 10-20 years. https://www.nio.com/
Musk talked about his rocket company on Joe Rogan a few years ago. He said NASA was full of middle to late aged arrogant engineers who it took years to try and implement something. Space X took much younger engineers who designed things 100 times faster and tried them out with them failing many times, but they ended up reaching their goal wayyyyyyy faster.
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Interstate locked down
