5 ms·

A majority of auto executives still think battery electric cars will fail

20 points by evo_9 9y ago

api 9y ago
... and the majority of traditional aerospace execs still apparently think reusable rockets will fail. This is why sometimes you just have to "reboot" an industry or other system and replace its institutions. IMHO the next industry that deserves a full reboot is Hollywood.
gumby 9y ago
Well. They might be right if they also believe that thr dominant model will continue to be be individuals making large capital investments in rarely used assets (i.e. continuing to purchase automobiles which are used less than 5% of the time). Recharge time, range anxiety and the like are irrelevant when you pay for the ride, not the equipment. Four months ago I got rid of my three cars, replacing them with a flat-rate Uber pass and the occasional rental. Life has been easier and cheaper — and I don’t live in a city. The car companies themselves are screwed unless they switch, long term, to selling rides as a service themselves. Nobody wants to be a seller of commodity product to a monopsony.
- orf 9y ago
  You had three cars??
  - gumby 9y ago
    Yes, I live in California where it appears to be de rigeur for a household to have more automobiles than people.
- lurr 9y ago
  Still say this sounds like a dystopia.
  - gumby 9y ago
    Really? Why? Not being sarcastic: genuinely curious. I hate driving And can’t wait for cars that really can drive themselves (even though my cars were manual mission — go figure). I also want everyone else’s car to drive itself too as that way they can drink and/or use their phones without risking my life. And owning a big chunk of m talk like that is a waste of money.
    - lurr 9y ago
      I want to stick something in my trunk, I need to take my dog to the kennel, I want to go camping, I want to go to the middle or oregon to watch the eclipse, etc... As for why it's dystopian. I'm now supposed to be entirely dependent on the whims of a third party private service for how I move around day to day. That sounds horrible.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  Unless you don't drive much, it must still be cheaper to simply own a nice, cheap used car? You can own a great car for $10k that gets excellent gas mileage.
- OhDagny 9y ago
  Except for the new emergent class of self-driving mobile homes and take up the mantle of affordable housing in america. Then you use your "vehicle" effectively at 100%
maxsilver 9y ago
I can not fathom how they could experience riding/driving a modern electric car and not instantly understand that this is the future of the automobile (regardless of who owns them or what is driving them).
- Spivak 9y ago
  Because the future belongs to fuel cells. Electric cars are undoubtedly the future but batteries, at least in their current form, probably aren't. Huge banks of batteries are a stop-gap until fuel cell tech matures. * The practical range of an electric car isn't great. There's no foreseeable story for a <5 minute charge. * (Compared to fuel cells) Banks of batteries are dangerous in a crash. I think the Electrek authors are wrong in their take on the situation. Distribution of the hydrogen will have razor thin margins just like gas stations. They're right that the current process for hydrogen isn't exactly efficient today, but that doesn't really sink the tech. It might not be full fuel cell but a hybrid fuel cell battery car might end up being the best of both worlds.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Was /s intended? Because electric battery costs are falling faster than solar PV costs fell [1] [2], and there are EV charing stations anywhere there is 120/240 service. There are 39 hydrogen fueling stations in the entire US [3]. There are 8500 Tesla Superchargers alone [4] (not to mention destination chargers, as well as non-Tesla charging stations [5]). [1] https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/electric-vehicle-battery-cost-dropped-80-6-years-227kwh-tesla-190kwh/ https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/electric-vehicle-battery-cost... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2564 https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2564 [3] https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html [4] https://www.tesla.com/supercharger https://www.tesla.com/supercharger [5] https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      There's an argument that running on methanol or ethanol is a requirement for a broad market fuel cell. Just because you can almost drop those directly into the infrastructure used for gasoline. Hydrogen also sucks to store.
wynch 9y ago
As long as we don't find a battery technology providing as much energy density as gasoline, electric cars will only be a fad with no real economic advantage. Regarding climate change and CO2 emissions, electric cars fail too : making the car AND producing the electricity to run it still produces way to much CO2. (most electricity still comes from coal) If I had to make a bold prediction : in the future, individual cars (running on gas or electricity) will be rare !
- aeleos 9y ago
  The thing is batteries don’t need to have even close to the energy density of gasoline in order to be competitive. As long as cars keep being terrible at actually making use of the energy density of gasoline, batteries won’t need to keep up. However, energy density is a legitimate complain about batteries, but it’s unreasonable to compare to gasoline.
- karthikb 9y ago
  > most electricity still comes from coal Highly dependent on location. At the end of 2016, CA was is less than 5% usage and 0.2% production of coal powered electricity. Many other places are following as well.
  - wynch 9y ago
    Look at the broader picture. I'm talking about world consumption (http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Generation-by-Energy-Source#tspQvChart http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Gene...) Fossil fuels (coal, gas - on which CA depends for more than half its electricity production BTW) represent more than 60% of electricity produced worldwide.
- jhayward 9y ago
  > most electricity still comes from coal This is not true anywhere in the US, and use of coal is in decline everywhere.
  - wynch 9y ago
stamps 9y ago
I tend to think hydrogen is going to be the winner.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lurr 9y ago
> it’s even more depressing than we could have imagined. I don't see it as depressing that they think this. It's depressing that they could be right. > “more than half (54%) of global auto executives say they believe these vehicles will fail commercially due to infrastructure challenges while 60 percent say excessive recharging times will do them in.” Sounds like valid arguments. > According to the survey, which polled nearly 1,000 executives (including 90 in the United States), more than three-quarters of executives think that fuel cell hydrogen vehicles will be the future. So not depressing at all. They think the alternative fuel of the future will be different, but still off of fossil fuels. That sounds fine. This "article" is terrible.

20 points by evo_9 9y ago

api 9y ago

... and the majority of traditional aerospace execs still apparently think reusable rockets will fail. This is why sometimes you just have to "reboot" an industry or other system and replace its institutions. IMHO the next industry that deserves a full reboot is Hollywood.

gumby 9y ago

Well. They might be right if they also believe that thr dominant model will continue to be be individuals making large capital investments in rarely used assets (i.e. continuing to purchase automobiles which are used less than 5% of the time). Recharge time, range anxiety and the like are irrelevant when you pay for the ride, not the equipment. Four months ago I got rid of my three cars, replacing them with a flat-rate Uber pass and the occasional rental. Life has been easier and cheaper — and I don’t live in a city. The car companies themselves are screwed unless they switch, long term, to selling rides as a service themselves. Nobody wants to be a seller of commodity product to a monopsony.

orf 9y ago
You had three cars??
- gumby 9y ago
  Yes, I live in California where it appears to be de rigeur for a household to have more automobiles than people.
lurr 9y ago
Still say this sounds like a dystopia.
- gumby 9y ago
  Really? Why? Not being sarcastic: genuinely curious. I hate driving And can’t wait for cars that really can drive themselves (even though my cars were manual mission — go figure). I also want everyone else’s car to drive itself too as that way they can drink and/or use their phones without risking my life. And owning a big chunk of m talk like that is a waste of money.
  - lurr 9y ago
    I want to stick something in my trunk, I need to take my dog to the kennel, I want to go camping, I want to go to the middle or oregon to watch the eclipse, etc... As for why it's dystopian. I'm now supposed to be entirely dependent on the whims of a third party private service for how I move around day to day. That sounds horrible.
jjeaff 9y ago
Unless you don't drive much, it must still be cheaper to simply own a nice, cheap used car? You can own a great car for $10k that gets excellent gas mileage.
OhDagny 9y ago
Except for the new emergent class of self-driving mobile homes and take up the mantle of affordable housing in america. Then you use your "vehicle" effectively at 100%

maxsilver 9y ago

I can not fathom how they could experience riding/driving a modern electric car and not instantly understand that this is the future of the automobile (regardless of who owns them or what is driving them).

Spivak 9y ago
Because the future belongs to fuel cells. Electric cars are undoubtedly the future but batteries, at least in their current form, probably aren't. Huge banks of batteries are a stop-gap until fuel cell tech matures. * The practical range of an electric car isn't great. There's no foreseeable story for a <5 minute charge. * (Compared to fuel cells) Banks of batteries are dangerous in a crash. I think the Electrek authors are wrong in their take on the situation. Distribution of the hydrogen will have razor thin margins just like gas stations. They're right that the current process for hydrogen isn't exactly efficient today, but that doesn't really sink the tech. It might not be full fuel cell but a hybrid fuel cell battery car might end up being the best of both worlds.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Was /s intended? Because electric battery costs are falling faster than solar PV costs fell [1] [2], and there are EV charing stations anywhere there is 120/240 service. There are 39 hydrogen fueling stations in the entire US [3]. There are 8500 Tesla Superchargers alone [4] (not to mention destination chargers, as well as non-Tesla charging stations [5]). [1] https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/electric-vehicle-battery-cost-dropped-80-6-years-227kwh-tesla-190kwh/ https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/electric-vehicle-battery-cost... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2564 https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2564 [3] https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html [4] https://www.tesla.com/supercharger https://www.tesla.com/supercharger [5] https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    There's an argument that running on methanol or ethanol is a requirement for a broad market fuel cell. Just because you can almost drop those directly into the infrastructure used for gasoline. Hydrogen also sucks to store.

wynch 9y ago

As long as we don't find a battery technology providing as much energy density as gasoline, electric cars will only be a fad with no real economic advantage. Regarding climate change and CO2 emissions, electric cars fail too : making the car AND producing the electricity to run it still produces way to much CO2. (most electricity still comes from coal) If I had to make a bold prediction : in the future, individual cars (running on gas or electricity) will be rare !

aeleos 9y ago
The thing is batteries don’t need to have even close to the energy density of gasoline in order to be competitive. As long as cars keep being terrible at actually making use of the energy density of gasoline, batteries won’t need to keep up. However, energy density is a legitimate complain about batteries, but it’s unreasonable to compare to gasoline.
karthikb 9y ago
> most electricity still comes from coal Highly dependent on location. At the end of 2016, CA was is less than 5% usage and 0.2% production of coal powered electricity. Many other places are following as well.
- wynch 9y ago
  Look at the broader picture. I'm talking about world consumption (http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Generation-by-Energy-Source#tspQvChart http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Gene...) Fossil fuels (coal, gas - on which CA depends for more than half its electricity production BTW) represent more than 60% of electricity produced worldwide.
jhayward 9y ago
> most electricity still comes from coal This is not true anywhere in the US, and use of coal is in decline everywhere.
- wynch 9y ago

stamps 9y ago

I tend to think hydrogen is going to be the winner.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lurr 9y ago

> it’s even more depressing than we could have imagined. I don't see it as depressing that they think this. It's depressing that they could be right. > “more than half (54%) of global auto executives say they believe these vehicles will fail commercially due to infrastructure challenges while 60 percent say excessive recharging times will do them in.” Sounds like valid arguments. > According to the survey, which polled nearly 1,000 executives (including 90 in the United States), more than three-quarters of executives think that fuel cell hydrogen vehicles will be the future. So not depressing at all. They think the alternative fuel of the future will be different, but still off of fossil fuels. That sounds fine. This "article" is terrible.