Electric vehicles, poor performance, high cost, vaporware

[lester12483]

Fisker karma.

[REdiculous]

Conclusion: The Leaf doesn’t begin to pencil out unless we drive over 72 miles/day. That seems a bit extreme for the casual commuter. REdiculous, I concede to your point. The annual miles are an eye-opener.

I just gave myself a budget of $32k and went from there...

The Versa is about $12k and the Leaf about $32k, for a difference of $20k.

If I get the Versa I can also buy 4000 gallons of gasoline at $5/gal. If I average 25mpg, I can drive 100k miles and I'll have spent my $32k.

The Leaf comes with cheap miles for life, but are they cheap enough to make a difference? Honestly, I'd love to see what you come up with, because all I have are guesses and hand-waiving. I'm too lazy to work numbers for various commute-lengths, and I'm sure that can make a big difference...

All in good fun!..though it does piss me off that BEVs are that expensive, considering it's the poor that can really use the savings, yet it's only the rich that can afford these vehicles and they take advantage of the federal incentive.

[liveforphysics]

Driving an EV provides some intangables that are tough to describe.

I only had one day with a Leaf, but it was honestly such a nice driving experience that going back yo my gas vehicle just felt kinda unsatisfying and a little stupid afterwards.

Having an engine idling at stoplights and while crawling around in traffic just felt so lame after rolling the leaf for a day.

Gas will hit $10 a gal in the next few years, even if OPEC reduces the worth per barrel even further, because the USD is all ready destroyed from money printing, and just waiting to collapse to being worthless. Electricity at least comes from domestic sources.

Its kinda fighting the enevitable to not go electric. We are just one big battery chemistry improvement from it making sense for ~98% of the vehicle use model for ~98% of Americans.

[Dauntless]

Its kinda fighting the enevitable to not go electric. We are just one big battery chemistry improvement from it making sense for ~98% of the vehicle use model for ~98% of Americans.

One battery chemistry improvement could be real big without being enough. If you have a 5 mile trip an electric scooter can work out great right now, if you can ride. I don't expect to see this 98/98 you're talking about in my lifetime.

Right now I'd settle for the LiPo performance without the pyrotechnic potential.

[REdiculous]

One battery chemistry improvement could be real big without being enough. If you have a 5 mile trip an electric scooter can work out great right now, if you can ride. I don't expect to see this 98/98 you're talking about in my lifetime.

Right now I'd settle for the LiPo performance without the pyrotechnic potential.

Yup...

Even if the capacity doubled for the same weight/size/cost, it still wouldn't be enough. Rather than "100 miles" in a Leaf you could do as much as 200 miles. woop-de-freakin-do; that's a 3 hour drive at 65mph and you're done.

This doesn't really matter for anything, but my truck needs an oil change every month just based on the miles it's been seeing -- easily averaging 100mi/day.

Fireworks are cool, they just need to be cheaper and more widely available! Right now I'd settle for lipo performance at half the cost. Physical size and weight could double for all I care - I want performance on the cheap.

[Arlo1]

One battery chemistry improvement could be real big without being enough. If you have a 5 mile trip an electric scooter can work out great right now, if you can ride. I don't expect to see this 98/98 you're talking about in my lifetime.

Right now I'd settle for the LiPo performance without the pyrotechnic potential.

Yup...

Even if the capacity doubled for the same weight/size/cost, it still wouldn't be enough. Rather than "100 miles" in a Leaf you could do as much as 200 miles. woop-de-freakin-do; that's a 3 hour drive at 65mph and you're done.

This doesn't really matter for anything, but my truck needs an oil change every month just based on the miles it's been seeing -- easily averaging 100mi/day.

Fireworks are cool, they just need to be cheaper and more widely available! Right now I'd settle for lipo performance at half the cost. Physical size and weight could double for all I care - I want performance on the cheap.

3 hours in my gas burning car and im done too the GAS tank is empty. They have charging stations set up for the leaf to fast charge they get 80% charge in 28 minutes. And someone set a world record with a leaf up the I5 it is 1200km in 24 hours! So dont tell me you can't use it for long trips!

[TylerDurden]

Remember the evolution of cell-phones: they were expensive, the phones sucked, the infrastructure sucked. Yet, could any country or society lead and succeed without them?

The same will be true of EVs: The societies that embrace EV technology will leave the laggers in the stone-age.

[REdiculous]

3 hours in my gas burning car and im done too the GAS tank is empty. They have charging stations set up for the leaf to fast charge they get 80% charge in 28 minutes. And someone set a world record with a leaf up the I5 it is 1200km in 24 hours! So dont tell me you can't use it for long trips!

What do you drive?...I think most cars will do 6 hours on a tank, on the freeway, and still have some range to go hunting for the cheap gas.

745 miles in 24 hours is pathetic. That should take 12 hours if you drive the speed limit, but that's only allowing 40 minutes of down-time for potty breaks, refueling, etc.

[Arlo1]

3 hours in my gas burning car and im done too the GAS tank is empty. They have charging stations set up for the leaf to fast charge they get 80% charge in 28 minutes. And someone set a world record with a leaf up the I5 it is 1200km in 24 hours! So dont tell me you can't use it for long trips!

What do you drive?...I think most cars will do 6 hours on a tank, on the freeway, and still have some range to go hunting for the cheap gas.

745 miles in 24 hours is pathetic. That should take 12 hours if you drive the speed limit, but that's only allowing 40 minutes of down-time for potty breaks, refueling, etc.

Srt4 and the most i seem to fit is 42 litres when the fuel light is flashing. I get 3-4 hours a tank 375-500 km most the comuting i do althought driving 95-100 km i have got 600 on a tank once. All im saying is you are looking at long travels way to much. I drive 70km a day and a leaf would be great for me!

[REdiculous]

3 hours in my gas burning car and im done too the GAS tank is empty. They have charging stations set up for the leaf to fast charge they get 80% charge in 28 minutes. And someone set a world record with a leaf up the I5 it is 1200km in 24 hours! So dont tell me you can't use it for long trips!

What do you drive?...I think most cars will do 6 hours on a tank, on the freeway, and still have some range to go hunting for the cheap gas.

745 miles in 24 hours is pathetic. That should take 12 hours if you drive the speed limit, but that's only allowing 40 minutes of down-time for potty breaks, refueling, etc.

Srt4 and the most i seem to fit is 42 litres when the fuel light is flashing. I get 3-4 hours a tank 375-500 km most the comuting i do althought driving 95-100 km i have got 600 on a tank once. All im saying is you are looking at long travels way to much. I drive 70km a day and a leaf would be great for me!

My tank is similarly sized and I can get 6-8 hours of drive-time on the freeway depending on how I drive.

You're not looking at long travels enough. Like I said earlier, my truck needs an oil change every month based on the miles...

My brother goes to school 25mi to the South and dad's school is 50 miles to the North. That's at least 150 miles a day without trying, and without getting into my miles, other errands or recreational usage. Even ignoring the truck/car thing, the Leaf is not a drop-in replacement for this kind of use - not even close!


A Leaf probably would work really well for you. Your commute is in the butter-zone; not too much but not too little. If it's worth the cost of entry, I dunno. You can work some numbers for yourself, but I still think I'd get something like the Versa if I had to buy new, or I'd look for a decent used car for around $5k.

[REdiculous]

We're not against electrics over here, just so we're clear...

When the engine in my truck gives up the ghost the plan is to convert to electric w/ a small diesel genset for greater range and lower battery costs.

Is it weird that I want my truck to die a quick death?

[liveforphysics]

Even if the capacity doubled for the same weight/size/cost, it still wouldn't be enough. Rather than "100 miles" in a Leaf you could do as much as 200 miles. woop-de-freakin-do; that's a 3 hour drive at 65mph and you're done.

If you need to regularly travel 200miles at a time (and delivering things isn't your occupation), you have chosen an extremely wasteful of your life/time and resources lifestyle.

I drive 0.8miles to work. I used to drive 1.1miles to work. It's not by chance, it's because I choose to not give that portion of my life to sitting in a car rather than doing awesome things.

If a 200mile EV can't satisfy 98% of your vehicle needs, it's really time to look into improving the way you live IMHO.

[REdiculous]

If you need to regularly travel 200miles at a time (and delivering things isn't your occupation), you have chosen an extremely wasteful of your life/time and resources lifestyle.

I drive 0.8miles to work. I used to drive 1.1miles to work. It's not by chance, it's because I choose to not give that portion of my life to sitting in a car rather than doing awesome things.

If a 200mile EV can't satisfy 98% of your vehicle needs, it's really time to look into improving the way you live IMHO.

A couple posts up I talked a little about my vehicle's usage. My commute is nil, "working" from home, but we've been down a vehicle for a while and mine has to pick up the slack. I rarely need 50 miles worth of range, personally, which is why the plan is to convert to electric w/ a removable genset.

[Arlo1]

A Leaf probably would work really well for you. Your commute is in the butter-zone; not too much but not too little. If it's worth the cost of entry, I dunno. You can work some numbers for yourself, but I still think I'd get something like the Versa if I had to buy new, or I'd look for a decent used car for around $5k.

Na I am working on bigger and better things. Finding a forklift motor is easy. I will build my own electric cars. I am in the middle of some awesome stuff and I bought a 1988 honda CRX for converting. My girlfriend is driving it for now as a ICE car. But soon..... I just need to catch up on some projects and finances then its game on. And I will use a brushed motor if needed for a daily but im working on other things ATM as well!

[dnmun]

i am of the opinion it is easiest to just buy a hybrid and do the plugin hybrid conversion. if i had more time and it was worth the effort for me, that is what i would pursue to get over to driving on juice. they are out there already, you have the range with a big pack, and then you also have the hybrid to fall back on. problem is that used hybrids are still very expensive. but cheaper than a motor and inverter, even before paying for the battery pack.

i have only seen one plugin prius on the freeway though. the tell tale being the rubber plug on the rear bumper to cover the electric plug, but still cruising in freeway traffic.

i like what peter perkins is doing a lot too.

[Kurt]

Even if the capacity doubled for the same weight/size/cost, it still wouldn't be enough. Rather than "100 miles" in a Leaf you could do as much as 200 miles. woop-de-freakin-do; that's a 3 hour drive at 65mph and you're done.

If you need to regularly travel 200miles at a time (and delivering things isn't your occupation), you have chosen an extremely wasteful of your life/time and resources lifestyle.

I drive 0.8miles to work. I used to drive 1.1miles to work. It's not by chance, it's because I choose to not give that portion of my life to sitting in a car rather than doing awesome things.

If a 200mile EV can't satisfy 98% of your vehicle needs, it's really time to look into improving the way you live IMHO.

With all this talk about range I would have to agree that 99% of people think they drive longer distances than they do each day before parking there car for the night. Living in Australia we have some crazy distances between places and plenty of open roads yet when you boil it all down Unless some one is taking a driving vacation or driving for a living most peoples daily trips are very short.

If I was to use my home city as an example the suburbs would perhaps sprawl 30 miles in all directions from the CBD. So wost case scenario if you lived on the outside of town and worked on the outside of town in the other direction 60 miles each way. You would drive 120 miles in a day . You would be a total nutcase for doing so and wanting to sit through 60 miles of city traffic each way but even so in that silly example its doable in a modern EV.

We have found when researching property out of town that around 60 miles is the max people will usually consider living from they work before they start saying it just isnt feasible to commute each day.Even then its only very few that will put up with eating 3hrs of there life each day.

We have a weekend house that is 61 miles from the CBD and at times my wife has commute from there to the CBD. Just for a week or two and when you take city traffic into account its a 1.5hr trip each way. So that's 3hrs a day just to get to work and about the limit of 99.9% of people would want to consider. But even so its only 122 miles return and could be done with today's EV tec.

Our city house is just 6 miles from the CBD we would be lucky to clock up 60 miles a week in our car when living down there. I'm sure a lot of people would get a real shock if they actually reset there trip meter each day before parking there car up for the night and took note of the miles traveled. I would say 99% would be under 100 miles for the day and a large portion of that would be under 50 miles.

When we go on driving vacations around Australia we find about 600km or 375 miles to be about the max we want to travel each day before it becomes not so enjoyable. (dont get me wrong I have driven way way more in a day) But if you have a choice and you are traveling a few thousand miles for a holiday I feel 375 miles usually chews up a big portion of the day when you take rest brakes, lunch stops and finding some where to crash for the night into the picture. It's a good 8hr's on the road as you are never just sitting on 60mph for 6hrs you have to slow down for towns and so on.

Throw in a 1hr charge while your having lunch into the picture and with today's tec you have a car with a longer range that will outlast most drivers stamina behind the wheel in 24hrs.

Kurt

[ProDigit]

Hi,
I haven't read the whole thread, but wanted to give me my 2ct.
Since I see most people in this thread are just ranting, let me be one of them too!

The rules and regulations make ebikes the way they are. Most of them are artificially limit a bike to a ridiculous speed of 20mph. I can drive faster on my pedal pusher than that!
If they legally would allow the speed limit to be increased to 30mph, it would allow these bikes to be used inside most cities and rural areas.
30MPH is technically what most people can get out of their bikes. It does not matter if you can maintain 30MPH for 2 seconds, or for 2 hours, on a bike most people won't drive past 30MPH for long, but most cyclists would drive 25MPH for prolonged periods of time. I see no reason why a scooter/electric bike/sub 50cc motorbike should be limited to 20MPH?

I think the speed limit of electric bikes should at least be increased from 25 MPH on a low battery, to 30MPH on a freshly charged one; and laws and regulations changed so that folks having such a bike won't need a license nor insurance for this.

Second, there have to be made company parking spaces for bikes, a parkinglot overseen by people, or locked in a room behind a fingerprint scanner enabled electronic lock; where people can lock their bikes, reducing the risk of stealing; each station equipped with a free charging station for personnel, and a keylock alarm!

Thirdly, USA needs to learn from Europe, and prioritize on bike transit in highly populated area's.
Make wider bike trails, and take a strip of car tracks away. Every city major should prefer less traffic in a city, and less traffic could mean 4 bikes taking up road space of 2 cars, instead of 3-4 cars!

So something in the entire fabric of our society must embrace change, and accommodate for it!

In such case, electric bikes would sell like hotcakes.

Of course, that's not good for the lawmakers, who earn their profits from tickets, they will need to find that income elsewhere, in this case focusing more on electric bikes, doing regular speed checks, penalizing those who's bikes drive more than 2-5MPH faster than the allowed maximum, tightening bike regulations (like forcing lights, reflectors, and mudguards, helmet and eye protection, limiting engine torq, and luggage or bike weight and stuff like that) and before you know it, you pay just as much on a bike ticket, than on a car ticket!

It's the lawmakers that destroy a country, by saying 'no' to everything, and putting extreme regulations, taking away what it means to be living in a 'free' country!
(ps: have you seen what still remains 'free' these days? Parking space, road moral code, etc etc.. There's no freedom anymore in USA, and if you ask me, they should change Lady liberty, to Mr Law, with an iron chain in his hand instead of a torch, and a banker or bank bills in his other hand, because the second way of slavery is make slaves via taxation and economic ways!

Go to Africa, and find that no one cares if you're driving 100MPH over the streets, with 5 people in the back of the truck, and 2 on the roof!
And guess what? There are less recorded accidents in Africa, then in USA, why? Because if I hit you, and you break your nail, you sew me, and I need to pay paper fees, court fees, your new nail fees, lawyer fees, etc etc...
In Africa, they go like 'it's ok dude, I'm ok', you apologize, buy a band-aid, and a chicken burrito for him, and the guy's ok with you!
There they understand what an accident is, over here they seemingly have forgotten. Until they are in the death chair for driving over a child crossing the street while they hadn't seen it!
But that's beside the point,

I think it's pretty feasible, to have a bike, like an Xtreme XB-700Li's bike, fill the trunk with a secondary battery, and all of a sudden you have a bike that travels 70miles, at 35MPH. If that bike would require no license, or insurance, all of a sudden everyone would be wanting one of those!

[Hillhater]

..... and all of a sudden you have a bike that travels 70miles, at 35MPH. If that bike would require no license, or insurance, all of a sudden everyone would be wanting one of those!

Sure, ..everyone would be wanting one of those.... but what happens when some drunk punk riding at 35mph on an uninsured E bike knocks you down and hospitalizes you?. ..... I dont think a burrito will pay the medical bills !
you should expect insurance to be a requirement ( for your own protection)
.. and why should someone else pay for your recharging ?
..There is no free lunch,

[ProDigit]

I know, but the difference between 20mph accident and a 25mph accident is minimal.
In both cases most of the time, even if a child appears from behind a corner, there's still time to slow down to a slow enough pace to minimize the damage (minus being drunk ofcourse).
Drunks are destroying it all for us, but then again, because many drunks are caught behind the wheel do we all have to drive 20mph now with our cars?
I think the drunk 'excuse' is a weak excuse. When a drunk knows he's drunk he'll never say, and still use a car or motorcycle drunk!
Responsible people will not use a car after too many glasses, and neither should they use a motorbike or 30mph bike.

If they can't make that call, they should not have access to a car,or real motorbike neither.

It's really an excuse most people use to justify bikes driving slower than 20mph.
Let cops allow people with clean record to upgrade their bikes to 30mph, and people with DUI have 5 years no access to these bikes, and only drive 20mph bikes!

In reality chances of driving <20mph on a road where there's a 40mph speedlimit is more dangerous than letting a drunk guy drive at 25 or 30mph; especially when the guy is drunk!

And there are places within the USA where you can't get from A to B (in 10 minutes), unless you use a 40mph road, or do a ridiculous 3 hours drive around to get there.

If it was upto me,bikes should drive 30mph, since that's the standard speed within urban area's. But yeah...
I might as well be shouting this against the walls....

[Kurt]

Ebikes and motorbikes are all well and good but when its bad weather or you want to carry some things with you A small car has its place.

I was just looking over the Tesla model S from what I can see 50K in the US If i could buy one for that price in Australia I would take the money out of the bank today. You wouldn't even get a a base model BMW - Volvo or typical euro sedan for that price in Australia. The more I look into that Tesla model S the more there is to like. 1/2 the mums doing the school run in my area are driving small euro SUV's or station wagons that cost between 50 - 80k so its not like people wont pay that kind of money for a nice car. Doing the numbers even at our very expensive electricity rate of 20 - 25c kwh a base model tesla would burn 6.25kwh - 100km or $1.56c - 100km . I typical mid size sedan will burn 10lt - 100km at around $1.50c lt that's $15 - 100km That's 10 times the cost of running a 40kw tesla with 250km range. Ok charging isn't 100% efficient but even at 50% efficiency its 5 times cheaper to run than a ICE car.

Kurt.

[Hillhater]

Kurt, have you checked the price of the Leaf, or the Volt in California ?
After rebates etc, the Leaf is about $25k.

[Kurt]

Yes cars in the US are always less expensive and always will be . I am fine with that we don't have the market and high tax on cars.I dont feel The leaf and volt are not even on the same page as the Tesla model s. I guess the price reflects that.

What I was getting at is if you want a nice looking and fast sedan in Australia- forget the fact the Tesla is electric and just base the choice on style-performance and features. You would be comparing the model S tesla with a 50 - 80k sedan's from the likes of BMW- Merc . Then you take the fact the Tesla is electric and all the huge advantages is running costs, interior room and handling, emissions bla bla bla the choice of whats better value and a better car becomes clear.

Cars like the Toyota Prius and Camry just make me laugh. hybrids are the worst of both worlds.

kurt

[ProDigit]

hybrids are the worst of both worlds.

I would not say that! There are electric vehicles that are powered by a ~4hp (or was it 4kW?) engine/generator. Those things have quite some torq, but also have amazing MPG ratings (like in the hundreds of MPG's).
The small lawnmower like engine drives a generator to provide a constant source of power. The electrical engine is selected in such a way when the car is driving below ~50-60mph, the energy it uses is about the energy the generator generates. If used faster it will use direct drive to aid the electric motors. When accelerating mostly battery power will be used. When slowing down or standing at a stop light, the battery gets recharged.

That way you keep noise levels down, consume only low amounts of gasoline, and when you need it, have the torq from the batteries. Also, the direct drive helps since it gets the energy straight from the tiny engine instead of having part of it lost in a conversion process (converting from movement to energy, back to movement).

I think some hybrids are very well designed, but not many.

[Kurt]

hybrids are the worst of both worlds.

I would not say that! There are electric vehicles that are powered by a ~4hp (or was it 4kW?) engine/generator. Those things have quite some torq, but also have amazing MPG ratings (like in the hundreds of MPG's).
The small lawnmower like engine drives a generator to provide a constant source of power. The electrical engine is selected in such a way when the car is driving below ~50-60mph, the energy it uses is about the energy the generator generates. If used faster it will use direct drive to aid the electric motors. When accelerating mostly battery power will be used. When slowing down or standing at a stop light, the battery gets recharged.

That way you keep noise levels down, consume only low amounts of gasoline, and when you need it, have the torq from the batteries. Also, the direct drive helps since it gets the energy straight from the tiny engine instead of having part of it lost in a conversion process (converting from movement to energy, back to movement).

I think some hybrids are very well designed, but not many.

and the advantage is ?

No full size car that is going 60mph is powered by a 4kw motor. If your putting gas into it then there is no advantage other than range. Really unless you plan on taking regular trips over 200 - 300 miles then that isn't going to be a issue.

If i am going to have to maintain a ICE I my as well just have a completely gas powered car.I consider a hybrid to be like any dual function tool it never dose as good a job as a dedicated tool for the job.

Yes I know the concept behind hybrids and the advantages on paper but really the other than range a can see no reason to go down that road. Big battery and big electric motor all electric is the answer. Can you imagine a hybrid ebike what a nightmare it would be with no real advantage.

Kurt

[pdf]

Yes I know the concept behind hybrids and the advantages on paper but really the other than range a can see no reason to go down that road. Big battery and big electric motor all electric is the answer. Can you imagine a hybrid ebike what a nightmare it would be with no real advantage.

Kurt

I have to disagree with you on this one. A hybrid is a car that averages 50 mpg, will carry a family, and go over 500 miles on a (small) tank of gas. These are not "paper" advantages. They are very real. Why do you care what is under the hood, unless you are going to work on it? Most people don't. Make that a plug-in hybid and you can go 500 miles to grandma's or 20 miles round trip to the office and back and the only difference is where the fuel comes from and what it costs. Battery cars do not have the range currently for the average driver's sole purpose vehicle. Charging one is a several-hour affair. For me, an electric car would make a great 2nd car, but it is still much easier to have a higher capacity vehicle in the garage for some uses. With a whole country driving electrics, where is the energy going to come from and at what cost? Simply electrifying our current transportation models is not an option.

As for a hybrid bike, it has no advantage, but who would drive one 100 miles? You could build one, but your ass would give out before the battery.

I've love a Leaf, but not at that price. It is still a long way to pay-back and most people aren't going to invest in a personal appliance with a payback period between 5 and 10 years (depending on what you buy, how much you drive, and what you assume it replaces). Anyway, that is how I see it. For me, the cool factor is nice but if it doesn't pay back, count me out. I have two kids to send to college and I'd like to retire before I'm 80.