9 ms·

Overview of Early Electric Cars

65 points by rsj_hn 6y ago

clouddrover 6y ago
The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good to see cars start to make use of ultra-capacitor buffers to more efficiently recuperate braking energy. The more you can protect the main battery with a capacitor buffer, the longer it'll last.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  I think they are. Most new electric cars are like at least 250 mile range, and Tesla's flagship Model S starts out at over 400 mile range (and their 520 mile range version will be available in about 12 months... that's more than most conventionally fueled cars). Charge speed is fine (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations) and safety is overall superior. Battery life is also not a concern as the battery in these vehicles will outlast the car. I just don't think people realize that batteries actually are plenty good enough now. No breakthrough is needed. It's about driving down the cost to as low as possible and scaling out charging standards and networks. And ultimately, just banning new conventional cars outright (starting out by requiring all new vehicles to have a plug in a few years).
  - literallycancer 6y ago
    Let's see. A 2011 diesel sedan can go about 900km before refueling. There's maybe 2 charging stations within 50 km of my central European location. So, the best experience I can have with an electric car right now is to spend a 100k on a car that doesn't work unless I live next to the charging station, or takes a day to charge. Oh and the car that I already have is not designed by Californians, so there's no stupid shit like a trunk full of snow every time you open it. I think I'll still go with the autism causing, dinosaur burning dumpster fire on wheels for now.
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      That would explain why Electric cars aren’t popular in Norway... oh wait: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/02/norway-at-79-1-plugin-electric-market-share-in-february/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/02/norway-at-79-1-plugin-e...
      - literallycancer 6y ago
        Norway just taxes fossil fuel cars so much that it's cheaper to buy a Tesla. They are like a Gulf state. Low population and a lot of oil. Plus the abundant hydro. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    > (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations) Curious how you are calculating this. I usually spend about 60-120 seconds refilling my tank once every 300 miles. (15 gallon tank, about 30 mpg). Because gas stations are everywhere, I never have to plan a specific route based on availability of gas stations, or use an app to find where the stations are, or even think about how much gas I have, as I know there is a station on the way to wherever I am going, and all I need to do is pull over. I even have the luxury of refusing to stop at gas stations on the left side of the road because there will be another station a block down on the right side. But with electric you have to go out of your way to find a charging station and it takes longer than 100 seconds to fully charge your car. So how can it be less time overall?
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      > So how can it be less time overall? If you can charge at home overnight (or at work during the day) then you won't need to go anywhere else.
      - rsj_hn 6y ago
        If a car never breaks down, then you don't need to waste time at a mechanic, either.
        samcheng 6y ago
        This metaphor doesn’t make sense to me. As a matter of course, a gasoline car needs gasoline; unless you live on a farm with delivered fuel, that means going to the gas station for it. An electric car needs only electricity to operate, which is already distributed via wires to everyone’s home. Both cars need tires; electric cars also need significantly less scheduled maintenance. No oil changes, no timing belt, etc.
        rsj_hn 6y ago
        The point being that estimating the expectation of something by excluding an important part of the event space yields a false estimate. No one believes that everyone always charges their cars at home and that charging stations are not needed, otherwise there would be no demand to build them. But when called out on the inconvenience of these stations there is a retreat to "oh, I only charge at home" and so that is the only case in which to take charge convenience into account.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    No, you need to think about what it means when all cars are electric. Current charging speeds lead to long queues at chargers like this: https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on-the-road-meant-hours-long-supercharger-lines-over-thanksgiving https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on-the-road-... No car on the road at the moment is capable of making full use of 350 kW CCS chargers (the Porsche Taycan comes closest at 270 kW). Ideally you'd want a flat charging curve at 350 kW to allow for more cars to be served by each charger. If you had a flat charging curve at 350 kW it would take about 13 minutes to go from 0 to 80% state of charge on a 100 kWh battery. Still slower than fueling an ICE car and still not full battery capacity, but you should be able handle 4 cars per hour per charger.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      > you should be able handle 4 cars per hour per charger. It's still abysmally slow.
      - clouddrover 6y ago
        Yes, there will still need to be more charge points than there are fuel pumps but your charging won't necessarily be exclusively at DC fast chargers. It will be a mix of DC and AC charging. For example, if you're on a road trip you might DC fast charge during the day and then slow charge overnight at a hotel so you start the day with a full battery.
        erik_seaberg 6y ago
        I guess it's feasible, but as of last year I've never seen a charger at a hotel. My office had maybe a dozen, which is already not enough—EV drivers were required to go outside and move their cars after a few hours. I don't know how often someone who needs one is screwed.
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        I always charge at my AirBNB. Just need an external 120V outlet. An RV-style outlet would work for L2 power levels. That’s not that uncommon.
- mettamage 6y ago
  Silly question: to what extent can you extend the range of a car by adding solar panels on the roof in cloudy conditions? If that adds range of 10% extra, then why not do it? I figured they thought about this a long time ago, so I'm just wondering.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    Not nearly enough. Solar panels, under absolutely perfect conditions (perfect angling, no clouds, etc) produce about 15w per square foot. Even if you covered every bit of the upward facing surfaces, including the hood, with panels, that's going to peak at about 1kw of input - and since you'll be off axis all the time it'll be less than that. A Tesla battery pack is 100kw/h. So under perfect conditions you'd need 100 hours of charging to get one charge.
    - fy20 6y ago
      The Prius Gen 3 had an option for a 'solar roof', but it's pretty much just a gimmick. The whole roof is 40W. All the panels do is power a fan to bring exterior air into the cabin, to keep it cooler during hot weather.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    It depends how efficient the car is and how efficient the solar panels are. Here are some examples of solar cars and their solar range estimates: - Aptera: https://www.aptera.us/never-charge https://www.aptera.us/never-charge - Lightyear One: https://lightyear.one/technology https://lightyear.one/technology - Sono Motors Sion: https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/ https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/ - Toyota Prius experimental prototype: https://newatlas.com/toyota-prius-solar-roof/60461/ https://newatlas.com/toyota-prius-solar-roof/60461/ - The Hyundai Ioniq 5 has a small panel as an option, but you won't get much range out of it: https://pvbuzz.com/hyundai-ioniq-5-solar-panels/ https://pvbuzz.com/hyundai-ioniq-5-solar-panels/
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  Honestly I think the issue isn't with batteries or current technology. My lay view is that the technology to make PEVs attractive is already here. What is not here is the eco-system. * Can you get the car serviced at an independent mechanic or do you have to go to the dealer and pay whatever they decide to charge you? No amount of battery innovation will overcome $1000 bills to replace a door handle. Check out Rich Rebuild's youtube channel for a description of the service costs of keeping a Tesla running out of warranty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq5c4jGR2gM&t=302s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq5c4jGR2gM&t=302s * Is there a large eco-system of after-market parts and third party warranty issuers? This is required to drive repair costs down. * Do we have good data on the lifetime of critical parts under actual use? This is required for consumers to estimate the operating costs over the life of the vehicle (whether or not they plan on selling it doesn't matter, as they will pay for those operating costs either in depreciation or in paying for repairs themselves) * Is there a robust country-wide charge network that compete with gas stations? * Is there a system to quickly get energy when you need it -- e.g. either very fast (10 min) charging or a swap-in battery system to give you a quick 100 miles of range. These are not issues that require breakthroughs in solid state science. If the batteries don't last long, make it easier to service them or swap them out. If the range isn't so great, create a wider network of chargers. If the parts don't last as long, make them cheaper and easier to service by independent mechanics. Force a right to repair and diagnose for PEVs as we have for gas powered cars. IOW, rather than waiting on breakthroughs in materials science, infrastructure upgrades can solve these issues, but lack of infrastructure can't be solved by breakthroughs in battery life. As long as Tesla is a monopoly provider of parts and service, and as long as the infrastructure isn't there, upping the power to weight ratio of batteries by 30% isn't going to do much to reduce ownership risk to consumers, and PEVs will remain a niche market dominated by wealthy consumers who can bear ownership cost risk better than middle class people. * And of course, the electric grid needs a massive upgrade. All of the above is well within the reach of existing tech. Whether it's financially feasible is another question.
- geoduck14 6y ago
  In my opinion, we are trying to solve the "EV range issue" all wrong. We are looking at gas cars, and asking "how can we do the same thing, but with electricity" - and we get a substandard result. What we SHOULD do is: take a step back and ask "what do we REALLY want to achieve". We don't really want long range and fast charge. We DO want worry-free power wherever we choose to go. It isn't a novel concept to suggest: inductive charging from the road into the car (as you drive). There are probably other more practical ideas, too, but - and this is critical- you have to start asking the right questions.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    That's insane. Inductive charging is wildly inefficient. On typical phone chargers efficiency is about 60-70% max..and it goes down with distance.
    - Nition 6y ago
      So what we really need is a big network of overhead wires, trolleybus style.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        Trolleybuses are very niche. The networks at least in North America have not expanded much, and many have shrunk since their heyday, because people find the wires a visual nuisance.
        Nition 6y ago
        I wasn't really serious. Although I do quite like trolleybuses. Even if the infrastructure existed I'm sure you could never trust the average driver to keep their car attached to the rails; even the buses come off sometimes.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    > We don't really want long range and fast charge Yes we do. As the article demonstrates, they were making the same arguments 100 years ago. Lack of range and charging speed is why electric cars lost out to ICE cars 100 years ago. ICE cars simply took you further, faster (and still do).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mattlondon 6y ago
It is interesting to see sentiment change over the years on hacker news. First EVs were too expensive. Then they were too slow/couldn't tow. Then the range was too small. Now people are griping that they can't "refuel" in 5 mins. I guess we will see what the next excuse becomes for people to continue polluting and why EVs "aren't ready" for their hypothetical/once-a-year/niche needs. Sigh.
- lurkmurk 6y ago
  But all of those are still true. I would argue that public transport should replace cars for commute which is most of the "non-niche" usage. Public transport can't get you anywhere, on your own terms? Sounds familiar.
  - FullyFunctional 6y ago
    They are not simultaneously true. The new Model S Long Range has 412 mi range. All of them can tow, but they are all fairly expensive. The cheapest Model 3 isn't cheap, but definitely getting there.
    - lurkmurk 6y ago
      It's better but not great. Not everyone can afford tesla. Western goverments and big companies are to blame for lack of incentives and infrastructure. People buy what makes the most sense, and petrol is better for many people. This can be changed. I think that everyone would instantly switch to EV if it had the same properties but had a battery instead of a tank. They are faster, silent, cleaner, but it's up to leaders to bridge the gap making them economically viable.
      - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        I've assumed its just a problem of demand for batteries exceeding supply. If a manufacturer can only make a small number of cars because they are restricted by battery supply then they are going to mark up the price to maximise their profit. As more battery supply becomes available the prices should fall.
Someone 6y ago
Those cars were popular (especially with women) because you didn’t have to hand-crank them. Because of that it has been said that what made gasoline cars take over was the invention of the electric starter for gasoline cars.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  "On the importance of user interface and ergonomics"
fy20 6y ago
Does anyone have any reading material on the history of control systems of electric vehicles? Today most EVs use AC motors with a inverter - a bunch of power transistors - that convert DC to AC, adjusting the frequency as required by the motor (that's what the hum you hear is). However obviously that wasn't the case 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago when electric (trolley) buses were still used in many parts of the world.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  Electric trams of the era used essentially large resistors banks and series parallel switching to control power. I expect it was much the same for electric cars, perhaps tapping off or rewiring part of the battery bank. The total amount of power probably made simple on-off control almost practical anyway.
- perilunar 6y ago
  DC motors driven directly from the battery, probably with a large wire-wound rheostat to control the power. Many cars had voltmeters and ammeters for the driver.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  You use a brushed DC motor where the field coil is in series with multi tap resistor bank controlled by the throttle. That's how it was done with electric golf carts before 1990. Article on 'speed switches' for old golf carts. http://www.golfcarcatalog.com/golf-cart-blog/golf-cart-speed-switches/ http://www.golfcarcatalog.com/golf-cart-blog/golf-cart-speed... Wiring diagram. https://wiringall.com/1984-ezgo-marathon-resistor-wiring-diagram.html https://wiringall.com/1984-ezgo-marathon-resistor-wiring-dia... Basically you use resistors to control the current in the motors field coil. Because the field windings have a lot of turns the current is much lower than in the armature. The armature is connected directly to the battery via a forward reverse switch.
cagenut 6y ago
The visuals in this are great. Its interesting to see how the materials and manufacturing complexity of what they could produce aren't far off what wealthy-hobbyest/niche-youtubers can do at home now. It'd be interesting to re-create one of these with modern parts.

65 points by rsj_hn 6y ago

The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good to see cars start to make use of ultra-capacitor buffers to more efficiently recuperate braking energy. The more you can protect the main battery with a capacitor buffer, the longer it'll last.

Robotbeat 6y ago
I think they are. Most new electric cars are like at least 250 mile range, and Tesla's flagship Model S starts out at over 400 mile range (and their 520 mile range version will be available in about 12 months... that's more than most conventionally fueled cars). Charge speed is fine (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations) and safety is overall superior. Battery life is also not a concern as the battery in these vehicles will outlast the car. I just don't think people realize that batteries actually are plenty good enough now. No breakthrough is needed. It's about driving down the cost to as low as possible and scaling out charging standards and networks. And ultimately, just banning new conventional cars outright (starting out by requiring all new vehicles to have a plug in a few years).
- literallycancer 6y ago
  Let's see. A 2011 diesel sedan can go about 900km before refueling. There's maybe 2 charging stations within 50 km of my central European location. So, the best experience I can have with an electric car right now is to spend a 100k on a car that doesn't work unless I live next to the charging station, or takes a day to charge. Oh and the car that I already have is not designed by Californians, so there's no stupid shit like a trunk full of snow every time you open it. I think I'll still go with the autism causing, dinosaur burning dumpster fire on wheels for now.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    That would explain why Electric cars aren’t popular in Norway... oh wait: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/02/norway-at-79-1-plugin-electric-market-share-in-february/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/02/norway-at-79-1-plugin-e...
    - literallycancer 6y ago
      Norway just taxes fossil fuel cars so much that it's cheaper to buy a Tesla. They are like a Gulf state. Low population and a lot of oil. Plus the abundant hydro. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  > (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations) Curious how you are calculating this. I usually spend about 60-120 seconds refilling my tank once every 300 miles. (15 gallon tank, about 30 mpg). Because gas stations are everywhere, I never have to plan a specific route based on availability of gas stations, or use an app to find where the stations are, or even think about how much gas I have, as I know there is a station on the way to wherever I am going, and all I need to do is pull over. I even have the luxury of refusing to stop at gas stations on the left side of the road because there will be another station a block down on the right side. But with electric you have to go out of your way to find a charging station and it takes longer than 100 seconds to fully charge your car. So how can it be less time overall?
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    > So how can it be less time overall? If you can charge at home overnight (or at work during the day) then you won't need to go anywhere else.
    - rsj_hn 6y ago
      If a car never breaks down, then you don't need to waste time at a mechanic, either.
      - samcheng 6y ago
        This metaphor doesn’t make sense to me. As a matter of course, a gasoline car needs gasoline; unless you live on a farm with delivered fuel, that means going to the gas station for it. An electric car needs only electricity to operate, which is already distributed via wires to everyone’s home. Both cars need tires; electric cars also need significantly less scheduled maintenance. No oil changes, no timing belt, etc.
        rsj_hn 6y ago
        The point being that estimating the expectation of something by excluding an important part of the event space yields a false estimate. No one believes that everyone always charges their cars at home and that charging stations are not needed, otherwise there would be no demand to build them. But when called out on the inconvenience of these stations there is a retreat to "oh, I only charge at home" and so that is the only case in which to take charge convenience into account.
- clouddrover 6y ago
  No, you need to think about what it means when all cars are electric. Current charging speeds lead to long queues at chargers like this: https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on-the-road-meant-hours-long-supercharger-lines-over-thanksgiving https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on-the-road-... No car on the road at the moment is capable of making full use of 350 kW CCS chargers (the Porsche Taycan comes closest at 270 kW). Ideally you'd want a flat charging curve at 350 kW to allow for more cars to be served by each charger. If you had a flat charging curve at 350 kW it would take about 13 minutes to go from 0 to 80% state of charge on a 100 kWh battery. Still slower than fueling an ICE car and still not full battery capacity, but you should be able handle 4 cars per hour per charger.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    > you should be able handle 4 cars per hour per charger. It's still abysmally slow.
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      Yes, there will still need to be more charge points than there are fuel pumps but your charging won't necessarily be exclusively at DC fast chargers. It will be a mix of DC and AC charging. For example, if you're on a road trip you might DC fast charge during the day and then slow charge overnight at a hotel so you start the day with a full battery.
      - erik_seaberg 6y ago
        I guess it's feasible, but as of last year I've never seen a charger at a hotel. My office had maybe a dozen, which is already not enough—EV drivers were required to go outside and move their cars after a few hours. I don't know how often someone who needs one is screwed.
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        I always charge at my AirBNB. Just need an external 120V outlet. An RV-style outlet would work for L2 power levels. That’s not that uncommon.
mettamage 6y ago
Silly question: to what extent can you extend the range of a car by adding solar panels on the roof in cloudy conditions? If that adds range of 10% extra, then why not do it? I figured they thought about this a long time ago, so I'm just wondering.
- TylerE 6y ago
  Not nearly enough. Solar panels, under absolutely perfect conditions (perfect angling, no clouds, etc) produce about 15w per square foot. Even if you covered every bit of the upward facing surfaces, including the hood, with panels, that's going to peak at about 1kw of input - and since you'll be off axis all the time it'll be less than that. A Tesla battery pack is 100kw/h. So under perfect conditions you'd need 100 hours of charging to get one charge.
  - fy20 6y ago
    The Prius Gen 3 had an option for a 'solar roof', but it's pretty much just a gimmick. The whole roof is 40W. All the panels do is power a fan to bring exterior air into the cabin, to keep it cooler during hot weather.
- clouddrover 6y ago
  It depends how efficient the car is and how efficient the solar panels are. Here are some examples of solar cars and their solar range estimates: - Aptera: https://www.aptera.us/never-charge https://www.aptera.us/never-charge - Lightyear One: https://lightyear.one/technology https://lightyear.one/technology - Sono Motors Sion: https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/ https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/ - Toyota Prius experimental prototype: https://newatlas.com/toyota-prius-solar-roof/60461/ https://newatlas.com/toyota-prius-solar-roof/60461/ - The Hyundai Ioniq 5 has a small panel as an option, but you won't get much range out of it: https://pvbuzz.com/hyundai-ioniq-5-solar-panels/ https://pvbuzz.com/hyundai-ioniq-5-solar-panels/
rsj_hn 6y ago
Honestly I think the issue isn't with batteries or current technology. My lay view is that the technology to make PEVs attractive is already here. What is not here is the eco-system. * Can you get the car serviced at an independent mechanic or do you have to go to the dealer and pay whatever they decide to charge you? No amount of battery innovation will overcome $1000 bills to replace a door handle. Check out Rich Rebuild's youtube channel for a description of the service costs of keeping a Tesla running out of warranty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq5c4jGR2gM&t=302s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq5c4jGR2gM&t=302s * Is there a large eco-system of after-market parts and third party warranty issuers? This is required to drive repair costs down. * Do we have good data on the lifetime of critical parts under actual use? This is required for consumers to estimate the operating costs over the life of the vehicle (whether or not they plan on selling it doesn't matter, as they will pay for those operating costs either in depreciation or in paying for repairs themselves) * Is there a robust country-wide charge network that compete with gas stations? * Is there a system to quickly get energy when you need it -- e.g. either very fast (10 min) charging or a swap-in battery system to give you a quick 100 miles of range. These are not issues that require breakthroughs in solid state science. If the batteries don't last long, make it easier to service them or swap them out. If the range isn't so great, create a wider network of chargers. If the parts don't last as long, make them cheaper and easier to service by independent mechanics. Force a right to repair and diagnose for PEVs as we have for gas powered cars. IOW, rather than waiting on breakthroughs in materials science, infrastructure upgrades can solve these issues, but lack of infrastructure can't be solved by breakthroughs in battery life. As long as Tesla is a monopoly provider of parts and service, and as long as the infrastructure isn't there, upping the power to weight ratio of batteries by 30% isn't going to do much to reduce ownership risk to consumers, and PEVs will remain a niche market dominated by wealthy consumers who can bear ownership cost risk better than middle class people. * And of course, the electric grid needs a massive upgrade. All of the above is well within the reach of existing tech. Whether it's financially feasible is another question.
geoduck14 6y ago
In my opinion, we are trying to solve the "EV range issue" all wrong. We are looking at gas cars, and asking "how can we do the same thing, but with electricity" - and we get a substandard result. What we SHOULD do is: take a step back and ask "what do we REALLY want to achieve". We don't really want long range and fast charge. We DO want worry-free power wherever we choose to go. It isn't a novel concept to suggest: inductive charging from the road into the car (as you drive). There are probably other more practical ideas, too, but - and this is critical- you have to start asking the right questions.
- TylerE 6y ago
  That's insane. Inductive charging is wildly inefficient. On typical phone chargers efficiency is about 60-70% max..and it goes down with distance.
  - Nition 6y ago
    So what we really need is a big network of overhead wires, trolleybus style.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Trolleybuses are very niche. The networks at least in North America have not expanded much, and many have shrunk since their heyday, because people find the wires a visual nuisance.
      - Nition 6y ago
        I wasn't really serious. Although I do quite like trolleybuses. Even if the infrastructure existed I'm sure you could never trust the average driver to keep their car attached to the rails; even the buses come off sometimes.
- clouddrover 6y ago
  > We don't really want long range and fast charge Yes we do. As the article demonstrates, they were making the same arguments 100 years ago. Lack of range and charging speed is why electric cars lost out to ICE cars 100 years ago. ICE cars simply took you further, faster (and still do).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mattlondon 6y ago

It is interesting to see sentiment change over the years on hacker news. First EVs were too expensive. Then they were too slow/couldn't tow. Then the range was too small. Now people are griping that they can't "refuel" in 5 mins. I guess we will see what the next excuse becomes for people to continue polluting and why EVs "aren't ready" for their hypothetical/once-a-year/niche needs. Sigh.

lurkmurk 6y ago
But all of those are still true. I would argue that public transport should replace cars for commute which is most of the "non-niche" usage. Public transport can't get you anywhere, on your own terms? Sounds familiar.
- FullyFunctional 6y ago
  They are not simultaneously true. The new Model S Long Range has 412 mi range. All of them can tow, but they are all fairly expensive. The cheapest Model 3 isn't cheap, but definitely getting there.
  - lurkmurk 6y ago
    It's better but not great. Not everyone can afford tesla. Western goverments and big companies are to blame for lack of incentives and infrastructure. People buy what makes the most sense, and petrol is better for many people. This can be changed. I think that everyone would instantly switch to EV if it had the same properties but had a battery instead of a tank. They are faster, silent, cleaner, but it's up to leaders to bridge the gap making them economically viable.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      I've assumed its just a problem of demand for batteries exceeding supply. If a manufacturer can only make a small number of cars because they are restricted by battery supply then they are going to mark up the price to maximise their profit. As more battery supply becomes available the prices should fall.

Someone 6y ago

Those cars were popular (especially with women) because you didn’t have to hand-crank them. Because of that it has been said that what made gasoline cars take over was the invention of the electric starter for gasoline cars.

agumonkey 6y ago
"On the importance of user interface and ergonomics"

fy20 6y ago

Does anyone have any reading material on the history of control systems of electric vehicles? Today most EVs use AC motors with a inverter - a bunch of power transistors - that convert DC to AC, adjusting the frequency as required by the motor (that's what the hum you hear is). However obviously that wasn't the case 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago when electric (trolley) buses were still used in many parts of the world.

VBprogrammer 6y ago
Electric trams of the era used essentially large resistors banks and series parallel switching to control power. I expect it was much the same for electric cars, perhaps tapping off or rewiring part of the battery bank. The total amount of power probably made simple on-off control almost practical anyway.
perilunar 6y ago
DC motors driven directly from the battery, probably with a large wire-wound rheostat to control the power. Many cars had voltmeters and ammeters for the driver.
Gibbon1 6y ago
You use a brushed DC motor where the field coil is in series with multi tap resistor bank controlled by the throttle. That's how it was done with electric golf carts before 1990. Article on 'speed switches' for old golf carts. http://www.golfcarcatalog.com/golf-cart-blog/golf-cart-speed-switches/ http://www.golfcarcatalog.com/golf-cart-blog/golf-cart-speed... Wiring diagram. https://wiringall.com/1984-ezgo-marathon-resistor-wiring-diagram.html https://wiringall.com/1984-ezgo-marathon-resistor-wiring-dia... Basically you use resistors to control the current in the motors field coil. Because the field windings have a lot of turns the current is much lower than in the armature. The armature is connected directly to the battery via a forward reverse switch.

cagenut 6y ago

The visuals in this are great. Its interesting to see how the materials and manufacturing complexity of what they could produce aren't far off what wealthy-hobbyest/niche-youtubers can do at home now. It'd be interesting to re-create one of these with modern parts.