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>EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now EVs have been in existence for nearly as long as ICE vehicles have. The 1867 World Exposition had an el

>EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now EVs have been in existence for nearly as long as ICE vehicles have. The 1867 World Exposition had an electric cycle and you had electric taxis in London in 1897 [1] and by 1912 there were 33,842 electric cars registered in the United States [2]. In the 50's you had Deutsche Post of the GDR using electric delivery vans (I believe an electric vehicle was being used in either London or Paris much earlier than that for postal use but I'm having a hard time finding a link, I swear I've read about it before though). Even Anderson Electric Car Company produced something like 13,0000 'Detroit Electric' cars int he early 1900s. Even the Apollo-era LRVs (lunar roving vehicle) were EVs (for obvious reasons). EVs are old-school, the only new-school thing about them is lithium battery chemistry. I genuinely don't think EVs are going to catch on any time soon. - They're far more expensive than ICE vehicles as there aren't a whole lot of used EVs but there are tons of used ICE vehicles at vary price levels. - John Q Public can't do much to repair an EV and has to take it to a mechanic, yet even something like an engine rebuild can be done in someone's garage if they are so motivated. I've never taken a single minute of mechanic training yet I've helped 4 different friends pull engines with borrowed hoists and do major work to them and without YouTube, only printed manuals for vehicles, I've done plenty of other work to my own vehicles (dropped the gas tank, replaced ball joints/pitmans/idle arms/electrical work/replaced most of the stuff under the hood in various vehicles). - People like me, in an apartment, can't charge at home and you're not going to see property owners rushing to install EV powering (even if they get to recover their costs by taking on a few % fee) any time soon, probably not even for new-construction. I can go to the gas station and fill a nearly empty tank in 2~ minutes which will last me 2 weeks of commuting and then some, for the same range in an EV I'm going to have to park somewhere and sit for 30+ minutes. Two of those three things keep me from having an electric vehicle (can't charge it, can't afford it) and the third, the fact I can't do any major repairs, is a big turn off. Even my 2013 Impala I can repair/service basically everything, and if I don't have the tools I can go rent any specialized tool I need for a nominal fee from the 3 big part store brands. I think these things are going to keep EV adoption pretty low for the foreseeable future. Even in my own experience here in Indianapolis I've only seen one tesla on the road (I actually see it most days on the way to work) in the wild and only know one person here that owns one (and he's stated it's impractical for anything other than driving to work and back). [1] https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-surprisingly-old-story-of-londons-first-ever-electric-taxi/ https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-surprisingly-old-story... [2] https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/Early-electric-automobiles https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/Early-elect...

WorldMaker 7y ago
> - They're far more expensive than ICE vehicles as there aren't a whole lot of used EVs but there are tons of used ICE vehicles at vary price levels. For now. That's a combination of efficiencies of scale problems. VW Group says that they'll hit the efficiency of scale where EVs are cheaper across the board for every make and model to produce than ICE vehicles sometime between now and 2023 (that's less than four years). Similarly there seem to be fewer used EV cars on the market than expected at this point, and they are retaining their market value better than comparable ICE models for interesting reasons: the average replacement rate is way down compared to the ICE average (where the average owner keeps a vehicle 3-5 years, the EV average is currently closer to 7-10 years), and the replacement rate seems to reflect overall reliability (Nissan Leafs have the highest replacement rate, and arguably the lowest battery reliability). > John Q Public can't do much to repair an EV and has to take it to a mechanic, yet even something like an engine rebuild can be done in someone's garage if they are so motivated. It's so very apples-to-oranges though. Most EV motors are essentially permanent magnet drivers with essentially no moving parts that will outlast the plastics and the frame of the car the motor is built for. There's no gas tank, fewer to no ball joints/pitmans/idle arms/timing belts/so forth and so on. Plenty of electrical work if you still want it, though most of it is now High Voltage and will take a bit more of an electrician background, some EVs still have a 12 volt system for bootstrapping the cabin systems. > I can go to the gas station and fill a nearly empty tank in 2~ minutes which will last me 2 weeks of commuting and then some, for the same range in an EV I'm going to have to park somewhere and sit for 30+ minutes. You think it would be hard to schedule a 30-45 minute meal somewhere once every two weeks? The car has to sit while it charges, but you don't and can schedule it as your grocery trip or your lunch break.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "You think it would be hard to schedule a 30-45 minute meal somewhere once every two weeks?" I think there is an issue that may not be obvious with the charging time. Let's say for the sake of argument, sure, people can tolerate taking ten times the amount of time to charge as filling a gas tank. But what that means on a large scale, if everyone switches to electric, is that we need ten times the number of charging stations as gas station pumps in order to have the same number of locations open per person. Of course, you say, people mostly charge electric cars at home. Sure, but if they do it 90% of the time, we still need just as many public chargers as there are gas stations now. On top of a charger for (almost) every home. Without much faster charging or much higher capacity batteries, it seems to me like this is a basic problem with switching everything to electric that I haven't heard about from others. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing, but I never see people address this or identify the incredible infrastructure requirements as a problem. People describe occasional waits for access to a charger and don't extrapolate.

WorldMaker 7y ago

> - They're far more expensive than ICE vehicles as there aren't a whole lot of used EVs but there are tons of used ICE vehicles at vary price levels. For now. That's a combination of efficiencies of scale problems. VW Group says that they'll hit the efficiency of scale where EVs are cheaper across the board for every make and model to produce than ICE vehicles sometime between now and 2023 (that's less than four years). Similarly there seem to be fewer used EV cars on the market than expected at this point, and they are retaining their market value better than comparable ICE models for interesting reasons: the average replacement rate is way down compared to the ICE average (where the average owner keeps a vehicle 3-5 years, the EV average is currently closer to 7-10 years), and the replacement rate seems to reflect overall reliability (Nissan Leafs have the highest replacement rate, and arguably the lowest battery reliability). > John Q Public can't do much to repair an EV and has to take it to a mechanic, yet even something like an engine rebuild can be done in someone's garage if they are so motivated. It's so very apples-to-oranges though. Most EV motors are essentially permanent magnet drivers with essentially no moving parts that will outlast the plastics and the frame of the car the motor is built for. There's no gas tank, fewer to no ball joints/pitmans/idle arms/timing belts/so forth and so on. Plenty of electrical work if you still want it, though most of it is now High Voltage and will take a bit more of an electrician background, some EVs still have a 12 volt system for bootstrapping the cabin systems. > I can go to the gas station and fill a nearly empty tank in 2~ minutes which will last me 2 weeks of commuting and then some, for the same range in an EV I'm going to have to park somewhere and sit for 30+ minutes. You think it would be hard to schedule a 30-45 minute meal somewhere once every two weeks? The car has to sit while it charges, but you don't and can schedule it as your grocery trip or your lunch break.

perl4ever 7y ago
"You think it would be hard to schedule a 30-45 minute meal somewhere once every two weeks?" I think there is an issue that may not be obvious with the charging time. Let's say for the sake of argument, sure, people can tolerate taking ten times the amount of time to charge as filling a gas tank. But what that means on a large scale, if everyone switches to electric, is that we need ten times the number of charging stations as gas station pumps in order to have the same number of locations open per person. Of course, you say, people mostly charge electric cars at home. Sure, but if they do it 90% of the time, we still need just as many public chargers as there are gas stations now. On top of a charger for (almost) every home. Without much faster charging or much higher capacity batteries, it seems to me like this is a basic problem with switching everything to electric that I haven't heard about from others. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing, but I never see people address this or identify the incredible infrastructure requirements as a problem. People describe occasional waits for access to a charger and don't extrapolate.