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> Admittedly, battery capacity costs money. Price-sensitivity is the reason most of these newly-announced cars don't have as much range. It is not a technical l

> Admittedly, battery capacity costs money. Price-sensitivity is the reason most of these newly-announced cars don't have as much range. It is not a technical limitation. I disagree. The costs will drop, sure, but that's not particularly relevant for performance cars. The weight, on the other hand, will only increase with every bit of range you add. While electric cars can easily produce enough torque to still accelerate quickly (though how much range you'll really have driving that way is another question...), even with adaptive suspensions using magnetorheological dampers you can't cheat basic physics in corners. And that's why I'd much rather have a BMW M3 (well, I'd prefer one of the AWD 911s, a V10 R8 or even an Audi RS4, but YMMV) than any electric car. Even if you value raw straight line acceleration that much, do note that the Tesla Roadster doesn't really compete with the BMW M3. You can get ICE vehicles with much better acceleration than an M3 that are still vastly superior in terms of handling to any Tesla.

danans 9y ago
> The costs will drop, sure, but that's not particularly relevant for performance cars. Conversely, cost is highly relevant for non performance cars, which, from the perspective of displacing transportation petroleum use, are far more important. Once the typical EV range reaches the limit that a person can comfortably drive without taking a long break (~300 miles?), range anxiety becomes a non-issue.
- keldaris 9y ago
  > Conversely, cost is highly relevant for non performance cars, which, from the perspective of displacing transportation petroleum use, are far more important. Absolutely. I was responding to a post about performance cars, so I stuck to that. > Once the typical EV range reaches the limit that a person can comfortably drive without taking a long break (~300 miles?), range anxiety becomes a non-issue. I don't entirely buy the argument that range anxiety just goes away after some magic number. Charging times still impose constraints and require planning ahead, especially for longer trips. Even people who spend 99% of their time in short city commutes don't necessarily like the idea that they might not be free to just jump in their car and set off when they please. Ultimately, no matter how far battery and charging tech advances, range and charging times will always be an objective disadvantage of electric cars vs ICE. When electric cars can actually outcompete ICE vehicles in price and other factors it may turn out to be a tradeoff most people are okay with, but we're not there yet.

danans 9y ago

> The costs will drop, sure, but that's not particularly relevant for performance cars. Conversely, cost is highly relevant for non performance cars, which, from the perspective of displacing transportation petroleum use, are far more important. Once the typical EV range reaches the limit that a person can comfortably drive without taking a long break (~300 miles?), range anxiety becomes a non-issue.

keldaris 9y ago
> Conversely, cost is highly relevant for non performance cars, which, from the perspective of displacing transportation petroleum use, are far more important. Absolutely. I was responding to a post about performance cars, so I stuck to that. > Once the typical EV range reaches the limit that a person can comfortably drive without taking a long break (~300 miles?), range anxiety becomes a non-issue. I don't entirely buy the argument that range anxiety just goes away after some magic number. Charging times still impose constraints and require planning ahead, especially for longer trips. Even people who spend 99% of their time in short city commutes don't necessarily like the idea that they might not be free to just jump in their car and set off when they please. Ultimately, no matter how far battery and charging tech advances, range and charging times will always be an objective disadvantage of electric cars vs ICE. When electric cars can actually outcompete ICE vehicles in price and other factors it may turn out to be a tradeoff most people are okay with, but we're not there yet.