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Clickbaity and completely misleading headline. The reason why the electric car didn't win was that it wasn't practical and still to this day isn't close to bei
by ThomPete 7y ago
Clickbaity and completely misleading headline.
The reason why the electric car didn't win was that it wasn't practical and still to this day isn't close to being as practical as using the combustion engine.
- eitland 7y ago> Clickbaity and completely misleading headline. Probably right. > and still to this day isn't close to being as practical as using the combustion engine. Wrong. A lot of people prefer Tesla today. Their cars are very much close to being as practical as the ones using combustion engines.
- jacquesm 7y ago"A lot of people" would have to be > 50% of the driving population for that to be the case.
- nixpulvis 7y agoExcuse me I believe you've mistaken "a lot" with "a majority". There are clearly still trade offs, but even ignoring the environmental benefits, the cost of fuel is much less, and for many people charging in the garage meets their needs on a daily basis. The gas stations are in many ways a redundant fuel network. And electric vehicles can still be very powerful and fun.
- brightball 7y agoOnly as a second vehicle for daily driving because it’s still a huge headache to take one on a longer trip.
- eitland 7y agoPeople regularily cross the country with these. My neigbour uses his Kona to cross the mountain to the west coast so it isn't limited to only the most expensive Tesla models either.
- brightball 7y agoPossible and practical are very different things. It’s taken a lot of innovation just to get the charge time inside of an hour. That’s not practical when everybody on the highway is driving them.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nixpulvis 7y agoYea this article made me a little sad. First of all, it's potentially interesting history, but told without enough detail (to be expected I suppose), and b) no facts from the current state of the art. How can something be set back by 100 years if we don't have a now to reference?
- tomohawk 7y agoDo they, or is that just the hype? https://www.thedrive.com/tech/29162/tesla-execs-claim-service-problems-are-over-as-owner-frustration-boils-over https://www.thedrive.com/tech/29162/tesla-execs-claim-servic... My internal combustion car gets 500+ miles of range on a 5 minute charge (fillup). It does that with 5 year old storage (gas tank). It does this at 5 degrees in the winter. Can any electric vehicle match that? If your use case is southern California urban driving - sure.
- CarVac 7y agoCan you fill up your car every night at home without going to a smelly, carcinogenic gas station?
- tomohawk 7y agoI don't know about you, but I only go to safe gas stations. I don't have to have my car tied to my house with a short leash, and don't have to have a 220 line run to my garage. Speaking of which, what if you don't have a place to charge at night? My 500 mile range is not a best case range. It's the expected range. The ranges advertised by the EVs are for ideal conditions (new batteries, good temperature, etc). I don't live such an ideal life.
- nixpulvis 7y ago"safe gas stations" sounds a bit like "clean coal" in this context. Safety isn't the primary issue at play here. Both batteries and gasoline are energy storage mediums and come with some level of unsafety (Not to mention moving > 60MPH on highways is intrinsically unsafe). I'll argue burning oil is not safe for our environment! The metric we're all arguing over is practicality, and appeal which are highly subjective.
- tomohawk 7y agoThe incumbent solution (ICE) gets 500 miles of range on a 5 minute charge with 5 year old storage, when it is 5 degrees F. You can wave your "subjective" wand and dismiss this, but new solutions are always compared to the current one. Here's an example of what happens when the reality of the insufficient range of a Tesla kicks in: https://jalopnik.com/german-environmental-minister-returned-tesla-model-s-ov-1798363790 https://jalopnik.com/german-environmental-minister-returned-... I think it would be great if EVs would be successful, but don't tell me they're equivalent when they are not. By the time my ICE is down to the range of an EV, it's time for me to fill up again. The short range of the EVs is just unacceptable. I'd be totally willing to buy an equivalent EV, but the current crop of them are not equivalent, and they cost a lot more.
- ThomPete 7y agoA lot of people prefer tesla but not for that reason.
- windexh8er 7y agoIn the long run electric will be more practical. We're at the point where normal, day to day range is acceptable for a majority of drivers. But the practicality electric has over ICE is that maintenance is practically nothing compared to it's counterpart. Also electrics (drivetrain) will outlast even diesel due to simplicity and inherent lack of wear parts.
- tomohawk 7y agoWill they? Or, will it be like John Deere tractors that only the vendor will be allowed to fix? https://www.thedrive.com/tech/29162/tesla-execs-claim-service-problems-are-over-as-owner-frustration-boils-over https://www.thedrive.com/tech/29162/tesla-execs-claim-servic...
- whenchamenia 7y agoTeslas are already like this. One of the myrid reasons I would not own one.
- ThomPete 7y agoEven if that became the case, it wasn't the reason why combustion engines took over.
- rightbyte 7y agoHow much less maintainance is it really? The electrical motor doesn't need much maintainance, but the rest of the vehicle is pretty much the same? You still have brakes, driveshafts and what not. The vehicles I have had sucumbed due to body rust not engine wear.
- gambiting 7y agoI mean.......look, I was against electric cars for a looong time. I currently drive a Mercedes AMG and would consider myself a "petrolhead". Few years ago a car that didn't have a raspy exhaust just wouldn't make my list at all. But nowadays.....I can't deny that the Tesla Model 3 is a very attractive proposition. 330 miles range on a single charge? 4.4s to 60? That's more range than my AMG(I'll do ~200 miles on a tank if I'm good), and 0-60 time is nearly as good, I'm sure it's good enough to always be first at the traffic lights anyways. And finally driving it daily will cost me nearly nothing - with 99 octane petrol being something like ~$8/US Gallon switching to an electric car looks more and more appealing every day, and I think I'll take the bait next year once my PCP runs out and I need a different car. As much as I love the craziness of a good old petrol powered AMG madness, the benefits of an electric car are undeniable. And 330 miles range is enough to drive it all week without charging daily, or drive down to London on a single charge if I fancy, or it I want to visit my family in Europe I can easily charge it at superchargers across the Autobahn - really I think my range anxiety is none existent at this point.
- jacquesm 7y agoReading this I suspect you are not the typical audience for anything transportation related.
- gambiting 7y ago....how so? I read a lot of different car magazines, motoring-related websites, I'd say I'm quite engaged with the topic. If I am not the audience for motoring news, then who is?
- jacquesm 7y ago'typical'. Most people use their cars to get from 'a' to 'b', yes, you're quite engaged with the topic. But AMG drivers are typically not your average car consumer.
- nixpulvis 7y agoTransportations or hot rods? I personally like trains, and bikes.