27 ms·

Toyota was still going on about how EVs were not viable and hydrogen fuel cells were the future while anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all o

Toyota was still going on about how EVs were not viable and hydrogen fuel cells were the future while anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all over the place. Elon's early responses to this remain true (grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc.) - there's been nearly zero progress in hydrogen fuel cells. Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure and hydrogen was a worse solution to the problem. Tesla proved this model despite constant criticism even after wild success. It's not a huge surprise Toyota is throwing their weight around to try to cheat out some legislative relevance rather than compete on product. Many companies being disrupted do that (see recent viasat story, US car dealerships, etc.) I hope they lose, imo they deserve it.

weaksauce 5y ago
until there are chargers for the masses or some kind of new tech comes along that can charge as fast as filling up the tank or the batteries can hold way more range than they do it is not going to work for the majority of people with cars. too many people can't plug in overnight to charge. electrics are superior for the people that they are superior for.
- slg 5y ago
  >a Model 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can recover up to 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour.[1] I agree we need more public chargers, but I don't think "chargers are too slow" is really a valid forward looking argument anymore. [1] - https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Faster charger are coming, too. Tesla already announced 300 kW https://electrek.co/2021/07/15/tesla-upgrading-supercharger-network-to-300-kw-faster-charging/ https://electrek.co/2021/07/15/tesla-upgrading-supercharger-... and Ionity is already offering 350 kW https://ionity.eu/en/design-and-tech.html https://ionity.eu/en/design-and-tech.html But the most important thing is the curve, not the peak rate. It's improving fast https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-charging-range-test-review/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-charging... and will improve further with the 4680 cells next year.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    > I don't think "chargers are too slow" is really a valid forward looking argument anymore. The problem is how many cars can be serviced by a single charging center in a given amount of time. Think about a weekend with good weather, or holiday weekends, when many people are taking trips on the same days. Normally, because filling a gas tank takes 5-10 minutes, cars can cycle in and out of ubiquitous gas stations very quickly. The same isn't true for charging, at least with the current footprint of chargers out there, especially with differences in charging architectures.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    I say this as a Tesla owner. Chargers are still too slow to appease a LOT of people. A 15-30 minute charge every 2-3 hours is unacceptable to people who expect a 5 minute gas-up every 3-4 hours. And while the supercharger network is expanding, the fact is, for a road trip, you'll still likely want to plan your charging stops ahead of time, and many people don't want to do this. With a gas car, you can easily just wing it with zero planning since no matter where you are, there's a gas station within 15 miles. The "charge rates up to 1,000 miles per hour" is only accurate when your battery is under what, 30%? IIRC, charging speed falls off almost linearly with state of charge.
- fossuser 5y ago
  I'd bet against you. The majority of people with cars can use EVs today fine. There are some exceptional outlier cases and even those people can rely on super chargers or charging stations (which are expanding rapidly).
  - derbOac 5y ago
    The majority of people I know who have cars would not be ok with EVs because they just don't have the range. The people I do know who are fine with EVs almost don't even need vehicles at all to be honest -- they could be using public transportation or biking or walking instead (I don't mean to suggest they shouldn't be using an EV, only that their alternatives often aren't combustion vehicles). I do think there are a lot of people who could be happily using EVs, but I don't think it's a majority. As for charging stations, I think many people who are still using combustion engines want to see a charging station at every gas station, or of equivalent geographic density. Distribution could be there but it's far from that now.
    - fossuser 5y ago
      Many people are afraid of the range, but don't actually drive anywhere near it day to day. EV range is also continuing to improve. I suspect/predict we'll see adoption continue to accelerate. I think a lot of the resistance is just status quo bias.
      - derbOac 5y ago
        FWIW, I think eventually EVs will dominate the market. It's a matter of when, not if (unless hydrogen makes a splash somehow). The issue with trips is yes, many people don't drive anywhere near that range on a daily per-trip basis. However, people don't buy cars on a trip-by-trip basis, they buy a car to handle the range of regularly encountered transportation scenarios they encounter. So even if people only make, say, 7% of their trips outside the range of an EV, they don't want to go and rent a car to do that if they already own a car. They want to have a car that will do that, plus the one or two trips per week that go well outside that range. They don't want to rent another car every week or two to do that. Add to that a conservative 50% reduction in range in the winter (per Consumer Reports), range is currently a concern. I guess I just think the range-per-trip metric can be misleading, because that can equate to a relatively large number of trips per time, especially given the expense of a car, regardless of technology.
- space_rock 5y ago
  We need some sort of infrastructure that delivers electricity around a country and only then will this work
  - mlinhares 5y ago
    I see what you did here :D
    - space_rock 5y ago
      It always amazes me people use the infrastructure argument against EV adoption. Electricity infrastructure is nearly universal worldwide and clearly more available than gasoline. Also recharge times on new Teslas is very impressive of not irrelevant to most of the population that can recharge at home
      - theshrike79 5y ago
        And even if they admit that the infrastructure exist, they vastly overestimate the amount of power needed to charge an EV at home. People actually believe you need a 150kW+ charger at home, when reality is that if you have a socket that can handle an electric kettle, you can charge an EV from it.
- RangerScience 5y ago
  Until the demand for chargers hits a tipping point and starts replacing corner gas stations... Yes, you do still have the charge time issue, but that's why chargers get paired up with places. Right now there's two (slow) charging stalls at my mid-tier local grocery-store-etc mall (Albertsons), and (ofc) none at the low-tier (Big Saver). There's plenty of room for more, and while my local grocery mall doesn't have a gas station in it, most do. Replace those with charging infrastructure, and we'll get past that tipping point.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    In Finland the largest charger networks are owned by the two largest ... grocery chains. Their locations are already next to traffic hubs, stores already have a beefy electrical hook up and a car full of people stopping for 15-45 minutes to charge is excellent for business.
    - RangerScience 5y ago
      Yup! Because Tesla charges waaay more for time at a charger not charging, I'm starting to like the slower chargers since it gives more time for whatever I'm up to at the location. 30m is enough to pop into Trader Joe's, but not enough for a restaurant (as an example)
      - theshrike79 5y ago
        Electric motors are also superior to combustion engines in pretty much every way. The biggest issue is mobile energy storage in sufficient quantities. With a train-sized diesel generator the problem goes away :)
- echelon 5y ago
  There are a number of problems with EVs that ICEs handle much better. Trucking and logistics is very time dependent, so stopping to recharge imposes severe logistical constraints. You can't have every truck stay at the same pit stop. There isn't enough space or time. Large apartment complexes are plentiful. A 1,000-resident building complex full of EVs will draw a lot of power. Can the grid handle it? What happens when the power goes out? How will residents of states that snow over in the winter will fare? Do they have to stop using their vehicles? Long trips by car suddenly become more painful, which will likely shift more traffic to air travel. ------ Edit ----- I have a "bad contributor" flag on my account [1]. I had a response to this comment [2] that I wanted to make but can't. I'll include it here for lack of an ability to post on HN: I just looked at my coke zero can (bad habit), and it's using potassium citrate as an acid buffer. Inflammation is a tax on the immune system and puts it in a state that is mainly intended for dealing with pathogen and cancer clearance. Over time, endothelial and genetic damage can accrue, resulting in hastened aging and system dysfunction. Increased cell population recruitment from the thymus also diminishes the organ's size in age, reducing immune system capacity to deal with these threats. Not news I wanted today, but something I needed to hear. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27959642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27959642 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27963171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27963171
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Trucking has tradeoffs in both directions - EVs are cheaper, and easier to maintain, trucks are huge and can have a lot of battery capacity. I think what's better depends on specific circumstance. For large apartment complexes there will probably need to be some load balancing, but seems manageable. Power going out doesn't seem like that big of a deal, more likely to have some charge in the car and it's more likely to find power than gas in a crisis (long lines at gas stations etc.) Long trips by car via super charger are pretty easy for everything except 700+mi trips which are very rare for vast majority. Unlikely to shift anything to air travel, if anything lower EV fuel costs could shift other direction. For snow my parents have had only EVs in Buffalo and have been fine. They also drive down the east coast to Florida.
    - 5y ago
- derbOac 5y ago
  My wife and I recently purchased a new car. We have strongly been considering an EV, but went with a hybrid because even though EVs were well within our price range, we couldn't depend on one. The infrastructure just isn't there, nor is the range. Maybe when we replace our other car it will make sense as that one is driven much shorter distances and we'd have the other one for longer distances (both are hybrids). This isn't even getting into issues with having to upgrade our electrical box and wiring to handle car charging in our garage. I would never buy a Tesla because I see better options in the EV space, but I do give them a lot of credit and thanks for introducing competition in the area and turning EVs into a product to covet. To me that's always been the best way to handle these sorts of things, to introduce competition and win people over. Lightbulbs were the same way -- the arguments died when quality affordable LEDs came on the market and took away any argument for anything else. When there's big range, reliable and affordable EVs with quick ubiquitous charging, people will flock to EVs. Sometimes I feel like these discussions are in a bubble, to be honest. When I think of the people I know, and what's in the parking lot, getting them to migrate to a hybrid is really where there would be any movement. Maybe someday they'll just jump to an EV and skip hybrids but at the moment there's lots of people who won't even consider anything but a full combustion system. I also don't really fault Toyota for pursuing hydrogen and would really like to see that continue at least as a research focus. It is much more energy dense and solves a lot of problems. I realize it's not as fully there yet as EVs, but EVs aren't either if anyone is being completely honest. The article casts Toyota in a nefarious light, but in some ways I feel like if the government is going to get involved and start playing favorites, they should do so in a competitive and diversified way. Otherwise maybe they should get out of the way and just incentivize competition per se. In fact, if the EV market is so healthy, maybe the government should be subsidizing alternatives like hydrogen?
  - evanrich 5y ago
    > I would never buy a Tesla because I see better options in the EV space Out of curiosity, who do you see as a better option and why?
    - fossuser 5y ago
      I'm also curious - I looked at a lot of EVs (maybe all that were available?) before getting the Model 3 (and had a Fiat 500e prior to that). None of them really came close in features and most were not competitive on cost either.
- woeirua 5y ago
  The overwhelming majority of households use their cars such that one essentially is used only for commuting and running errands on the weekend. The second car, can quite easily be electric given the state of today's technology, and that's the sweet spot for it right now. Once prices come down I would be surprised to see people not have at least one electric car in their garage. Gas hybrids are vastly superior though for long distance traveling. The infrastructure just isnt there yet, and charging for an hour sucks.
  - natch 5y ago
    Two EVs are way easier to manage than one EV and one ICE car. Because you can trade them off at a distant charger.
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    That's exactly the model my household follows (or will follow once I return to my office commute) - one small EV (with a short, 110 mile range) for the daily commute, and one Hybrid for longer trips or hauling more stuff/people. We'd probably just have the EV and rent a car for longer trips, but we needed a second car for my spouse anyway who works from home full time.
- ygjb 5y ago
  Is this just your opinion, or do you actually have data to back up your claims here? I ask because there was a 5 year old study that illustrated that in 2016 87% of trips were within range for an electric vehicle with overnight charging. https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2016112 https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2016112 Range anxiety is a real thing, but we settled on a PHEV SUV with a 40km range last year due to not finding the right mix of towing capacity and range in an electric vehicle (we need to routinely use a trailer that can haul >1500 lbs for business reasons). That 40km range covers approximately 3/4 quarters (74.38) of our routine driving (I actually have this data, we were surprised that it came out to such a round number!) We expect to sell our current vehicle and switch to a full electric SUV with similar capabilities once they are available in 2021/2022.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Range isn't the problem, lack of charging stations is. Drive around any city at night and look how many cars are parked overnight on streets and in parking lots with no chargers anywhere near. That infrastructure can be built but it will take decades.
    - fattire 5y ago
      Why would it take decades?
      - nradov 5y ago
        Equipment costs, limited city budgets, permit process, labor availability, local transformer capacity, etc.
        theshrike79 5y ago
        A charging station costs an order of magnitude less than a petrol station Why would cities need to pay a dime for charging infrastructure? There are commercial vendors doing just fine. Which do you think is the hardest to get a permit for? 1) underground tank for thousands of gallons of explosive liquid that's bad for the environment if it leaks 2) overground tank of pressurised explosive gas known for its ability to leak out of every container 3) a big-ass electric socket As for labor, you need an electrician with a high voltage certificate. Not a exactly rare, hard to train, commodity. Maybe a dude with a backhoe to dig the wires. Local transformer capacity is highly variable, some areas might have issues, others might not. A charging station can bring stability to unstable networks if paired with a battery bank to offset the load. (And maybe even make $$ by charging it during low load and feed back during peak hours).
- cronix 5y ago
  I kind of like what Nio is doing with batteries in their cars - quickly swap them out and be on your way instead of sitting there for an hour+ charging. It obviously wouldn't work everywhere as it requires a substantial infrastructure compared to a charging station (so economical in dense populated areas). But it's essentially as fast as filling up with regular gasoline. Pull in, battery gets swapped in minutes, pull out. BaaS (Batteries as a Service). It also lowers the price of the car up front since you don't pay for the massive battery, which is the largest cost portion of an electric vehicle. https://www.nio.com/blog/nio-completes-2000000-battery-swaps https://www.nio.com/blog/nio-completes-2000000-battery-swaps
  - bruceb 5y ago
    Maybe battery swaping will work this time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29
    - Animats 5y ago
      Even things that used to do battery swapping, such as forklifts, are moving away from that. Now that battery forklifts can get through a workday on one charge, it's easier to just recharge during off hours.
- Server6 5y ago
  Most people can charge at home overnight. According the US census 65% of adults own their own home. Sure infrastructure needs built out for the remaining 35% of renters. However the demand won't be there for a while since most renters are likely younger and/or lower income and not the current target market for EVs.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Some of those 65% (condo and rowhouse owners and places where on-street parking is prevalent) will also need some amount of shared/public charging infrastructure.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      It's easy to do. There are electric cables everywhere (every street lamp, for example). Also, I'm old enough to remember when one had to pay for wifi at hotels and restaurants. I bet we won't pay for charging a car at some point and/or at some time of the day (plugging your car will help the grid due to the share of renewables, you may even be paid for the service). See https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/california-virtual-power-plant https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/californi...
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    Owning a home does not imply the ability to charge a car. It is common for homeowners to park cars on the street out of necessity.
  - natch 5y ago
    Some apartment renters can charge at home too. Just depends on the setup. But sure some can’t.
- akudha 5y ago
  A woman was saying (on Reddit, I think) that she is not comfortable sitting for an hour at the charging station. If I hadn't read that, I would've never thought of the safety angle for female EV owners. I hope EVs surpass gas guzzlers, but there are some issues to fix before that can happen.
  - fattire 5y ago
    Leaving aside "sitting for an hour" (?), isn't it much safer to charge 99% of the time in your own garage and never have to regularly step out of your car alone at a dark gas station on the corner? Even on a long drive you leave home with a "full tank" without having that first stop to gas up.
    - fossuser 5y ago
      Yeah - plus superchargers are typically in busy public areas often with security (unlike many gas stations). It feels fairly contrived, I'm skeptical it's not just anti-ev motivated reasoning.
      - natch 5y ago
        No need for security, Tesla owners watch out for each other.
        natch 5y ago
        To put it another way, people charging EVs tend to look out for each other and help each other. At Tesla chargers, since they have multiple plugs in one spot, there are often other friendly people there charging so you feel safer and more secure. So even without security guards it is a good setup for leaving your car or for being there in a strange parking lot.
  - natch 5y ago
    People draw a lot of scary conclusions based on what they know about bad EV choices. It all depends on what car you choose. With Teslas at least, you don’t sit for an hour, since they have fast chargers all over the place. In other cars, yes. Some of our charges are 5-10 minutes. On a road trip most are 20-30 minutes. The longest charge is if you need to get to a place that is near the edge of your range, which is exceedingly rare, even on long road trips. In those highly unusual cases you might have to charge for 45-50 minutes for that one leg of the trip, if you didn’t arrive with half a charge already. Again this is with a supercharger. Other cars… yes, scary charge times. (You will hear about how some cars… Porsche… can charge at a faster rate, but the chargers to support this are rare, so their fast rate is often not possible and they are stuck at a slow charger for hours.) Also with other cars you are sitting there alone often at a single plug station. With Tesla chargers you are generally not alone, you are with other Tesla owners who have your back if anything suspicious starts happening around the area.
- natch 5y ago
  We owned two Teslas for two years with no place to plug in at home. But we did have local charging options. You would be surprised how easy it can be, if you live in the right place. However, I’ll be the first to admit that this is a big if. Now we manage to keep two Teslas charged with one single 110 outlet. It’s plenty for around town. We even have nights where we go to bed without plugging in either car, because they are both already 80% full, which is a good place to stop for battery health.
- bananabreakfast 5y ago
  They already have chargers for the masses. Superchargers are all over the place and charge nearly as fast as filling up a tank. Most people wildly underestimate how much time they spend at a gas station filling up gas anyway. Range is not really an issue either. Unless you're regularly road tripping 400+ miles, an EV will handle the trip just fine.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    > Superchargers are all over the place and charge nearly as fast as filling up a tank. This is not at all true. Filling up even a larger 25 gallon gas tank can be done within 10 minutes. Even the newest Tesla Model S Plaid on the fastest supercharger takes 52 minutes to go from 5% to 95% (https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-charging-analysis/ https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-chargin...). > Range is not really an issue either. Unless you're regularly road tripping 400+ miles, an EV will handle the trip just fine. Range can be an issue for numerous reasons. Your range changes based on load, temperature, and the road. If you're driving in cold conditions, uphill, with passengers and cargo, your range isn't 400 miles - it might be half that. Plus even the longest range Tesla currently gets only 396 miles under the ideal conditions of the EPA cycle. Unlike with gas cars, you can't just carry an extra can of electric charge to cover yourself for a rare longer journey.
    - nickik 5y ago
      > Even the newest Tesla Model S Plaid on the fastest supercharger takes 52 minutes to go from 5% to 95% The thing is, you don't actually do that in practice. Go and actually listen to the insideev podcast. The Tesla will tell you where to stop for how long. Typically on a road-trip you actually make a few more stops and only charge from 5% to 60%. Unless you are a really extreme road tripper, peeing and getting a quick snake is more then enough. The guys on insideev actually do a huge amount of road tripping (with all kinds of cars) and they prefer EV to ICE for almost all trips. And in most cases the charging doesn't hold you up much at all. Also guess what, if you drive uphill with cargo in extreme temperatures you also use more gas and your car doesn't get its normal mileage. With an EV you actually get much of that energy back when going down the mountain on the other side. Also, this is probably less then 0.1% of all miles driven. So it really doesn't work as an argument and doesn't apply to 95% of the people. And for another 3% it likely doesn't apply for more then 1-2 a year. Nobody is saying that EV are literally perfect for every single case ever. But as a practical matter, they are simply better for the majority of people already.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Elon's early responses to this remain true (grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc.) And Battery tech is "good enough" for most (99%) trips.
- freedomben 5y ago
  and if we destroy any market that isn't electric by punishing gas/hydrogen/etc, what does that do to the 1%? Sorry you're out of luck, just move to the city and change careers/lifestyle? Also note that a lot of that 1% are the trucks that bring goods into the city.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    Who is talking about punishing hydrogen? And what about the fact that gas is currently massively subsidised, is removing subsidy a "punishment"? And what about the fact that we all need this air to breathe and we're all collectively subsidising this lifestyle with our health? Also note that trucks bringing goods into a city could still be subsidised separately from other things if we chose, and that bulk goods distribution have more options for on-premises fuel tanks than people's homes do, things don't have to be binary.
    - freedomben 5y ago
      When you subsidize competitors to hydrogen (such as electricity), it punishes hydrogen. Toyota et al are asking to reduce these subsidies. I don't know whether gas is subsidized or not, but if it is, I agree, remove the subsidy!
      - bananabreakfast 5y ago
        ha yes. Gas is wildly subsidized so consumers have cheap fuel prices to support the car based economy. Same as corn, dairy, etc...
        5y ago
partiallypro 5y ago
Charging still takes a long time and has relatively low mileage. Hydrogen doesn't have that problem and in the end accounting for lithium mining destroying the environment I still don't think it's that clear cut. EV just has more adoption because it's easier at this point and perks don't want to fall behind against Tesla. I also don't see how Toyota "deserves" to lose. When you take into consideration their longevity and fairly good track record on gas mileage...they are better than a lot of manufacturers that are now pushing hard for electric. People tend to forget that manufacturing a car and replacing a car wears on the environment just as much as driving it.
- deelowe 5y ago
  > relatively low mileage You can get a base model 3 today with 263 to 353 miles of range. That's upwards of 3-4 hours of driving with no breaks. Stop to take a break at a super charger for 30 minutes and you can do another 3-4 hours. How is this still no practical especially combined with all the time and money they save not having to do most routine maintenance.
  - partiallypro 5y ago
    That also depends on passenger weight, or if you're hauling something. The new electric trucks plummet on mileage if they are carrying weight. I understand that gasoline vehicles do the same thing, but not at such a steep rate. I don't think a lot of commenters here have much experience living in rural environments. This doesn't even begin to touch on the ability to repair the vehicles.
    - NotSammyHagar 5y ago
      All vehicles plummet in range pulling heavy loads at high speed. You notice it more in a vehicle with careful range estimation, and slower refuling. If you need to drive 600 miles a day pulling a heavy trailer, EVs don't work for you right now. Similarly my wife's Toyota Camry does not work for that either.
    - chillwaves 5y ago
Animats 5y ago
Toyota is still trying to sell their hydrogen-powered Mirai.[1] After six years, they're selling a few hundred a month, all in California because that's where there are some hydrogen stations. The hydrogen station situation is a joke.[2] Not only are there few of them, most of them are offline.[2] Right now, not one hydrogen station in the South Bay is working. [1] https://www.toyota.com/mirai/ https://www.toyota.com/mirai/ [2] https://cafcp.org/stationmap https://cafcp.org/stationmap
- jdavis703 5y ago
  You can’t buy a Mirai, you can only lease them. And they’re only sold in CA because they’re a so called “compliance car” designed to appease regulators. Personal story, when I tried to lease one they wanted me to share my social media info because they only wanted to lease them to “influencers.” Seemed like a bizarre way to run a business, and since I’m not an influencer I looked elsewhere.
  - coolspot 5y ago
    Maybe it was true at some point, but not anymore - you absolutely can buy a Mirai. https://www.toyota.com/search-inventory/page/results/year/2021/series/mirai https://www.toyota.com/search-inventory/page/results/year/20...
- natch 5y ago
  Also they’ve had a few explosions. Usually hydrogen delivery trucks, but they list them as explosions “at the plant” in what I guess is a trick to hide the fact that these trucks that are driving around city streets can explode. Then also some at retail filling stations.
- FreakyT 5y ago
  The key difference between Toyota's approach and Tesla's was simple: Tesla built out their own charging infrastructure. Just like with battery-electric-vehicles, there's a chicken and egg problem: no one will buy a car if there's nowhere to charge/fuel it, but no one will build fueling/charging stations if no one has that type of car. If Toyota was serious about hydrogen, they should have done what Tesla did, and built a countrywide network of hydrogen stations.
Razengan 5y ago
> cheat out some legislative relevance rather than compete on product. Many companies being disrupted do that (see recent viasat story, US car dealerships, etc.) Or all the recent hullabaloo against Apple’s App Store
antattack 5y ago
Toyota made a bet that they will leap over current EV teach with their, "soon to come", solid state batteries. With all battery production capacity already spoken for, Toyota has to slow down EV adoption, convince us that hybrids are still a thing. If unsuccessful, they stand to loose market share soon.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  By the time solid state battery are thing, Tesla will be much bigger (and moving faster) in the EV space, so it's highly probable that the industry (including cell manufacturers) will line up to support Tesla rather than Toyota. Also, Tesla's margins are improving to a point where they'll soon be more profitable than Toyota and be able to pay a better price for any cell production capacity available (solid state or not). It's getting really late for the Japanese giant and they're still in denial (a good friend of mine is responsible for the deployment of Mirai in Europe and he's well aware that).
glogla 5y ago
> Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure and hydrogen was a worse solution to the problem. I believe it is more sinister - most of hydrogen currently available is made "almost free" from natural gas. So behind hydrogen, I would expect current Oil and Gas companies that are trying to stay relevant - and hydrogen is perfect for greenwashing, since it could in theory be made from green electricity and thus zero emission - but that will never be price competitive with hydrogen from natural gas, unless we start counting externalities.
throwawayboise 5y ago
> anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all over the place Not where I am. They are rare enough that it's still something of a novelty to see one (I'm talking about pure EVs like a Tesla, not hybrids). Toyota may be seeing that EVs will be a mass-market fiasco in many parts of the country where charging infrastructure is sparse, winters are cold, and even 200+ mile range can be a real limit and want to be able to continue to sell hybrids and ICE vehicles to those customers who prefer/require them.
- Lammy 5y ago
  "I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car. A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time. Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar! Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…"
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    A lot of people think this song is about driving an illegal gas engine, but its really about driving a car with illegally low safety features. Honestly the cyber truck feels like what the source material was envisioning, but not due to the electric part
  - wumpus 5y ago
    That song is an excellent example of Libertarian fiction that didn't happen, but it still regarded to be a cautionary tale. Which brings me to the joke about Lord of the Rings and The Fountainhead...
- rplst8 5y ago
  Yes, there needs to be support for ICE vehicles in certain areas for quite some time to come. Until EV technology can support those that rely on gasoline or diesel powered cars in remote places. Once the fossil fuel infrastructure starts to lose mainstream use, folks that require larger range, better cold weather reliability, etc. will pay through the nose to be able to move freely using their existing cars. It will be a slow transition until it's not, and then you have a bunch of useless piles of steel, glass, and rubber lying around. I wonder how they will handle emergency and military vehicles in the future. For any of them to use it it has to just work, and work quickly.
mustafa_pasi 5y ago
>Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure That is not true. Hybrids can be greener than an full EV. To make EVs palatable, automakers realized they need to use huge batteries with 400+ miles of range. But the average daily commute is much much less than that. The result of which is that you waste a lot of money and CO2 emissions to produce a battery that is 3x too big. A hybrid with a range extender and 1/3 of the battery, can better accommodate the needs of daily commuters while actually being cleaner than an EV since the CO2 emissions from EV manufacturing is almost entirely due to the battery and it takes years (two to three depending on your commute) to offset those emission even against a new ICE car.
- lumost 5y ago
  This assumes the engine, fuel infrastructure, and weight of the ICE engine is free. It also assumes that the electric infrastructure cannot be fully converted to carbon neutral sources. Lastly it assumes that battery technology will improve at a comparable rate to ICE technology which has been extremely wrong in the last 10 years.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    Well, the fuel infrastructure already exists, and the weight of the ICE engine is at least partially offset by the smaller battery. I'm extremely skeptical of any claim that hybrids are better for the environment than EVs in aggregate, but for specific use cases over certain timeframes the difference may be small.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      This assumes that a hybrid has to have a smaller battery to fit the ICE engine and/or that the ICE engine has equivalent weight/density. On the one hand, volume versus weight an ICE engine is generally "lighter" than if that equivalent space were tightly packed with battery cells. But on the other hand a car is not going to tightly pack the equivalent volume, most modern EV designs are a "skateboard" layout with all the batteries on the floor of the car. The front hood of the car is typically at that point unused space and many modern electrics place there now a "frunk" ("front trunk" or "froot"/"front boot" if you prefer Britishisms) for "bonus" cargo space. From that perspective, a hybrid has "free" space for a gas generator by taking "back" the frunk space, but they have to shrink the battery because of the added weight of the gas generator. (The skateboard has the physical space either way, it shrinks to keep the overall car weight below an aerodynamic threshold, not to yield space for the gas generator.)
philwelch 5y ago
> Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure The US currently has just one million EV's and over 5.8 million hybrids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_t...) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_vehicles_in_th...). I think it's a lot more fair to say that hybrids are a transitional solution. They came out in the 90's and still outnumber EV's on the road over 5-1 today, so I'd say we're in the midst of a 30-50 year transition.
- bobsil1 5y ago
  It’s going to tip a lot faster than that in 2 yrs when EVs are cheaper up front.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    New car sales might tip in two years, but that’s a small fraction of cars on the road. The average car on the road is over a decade old. In fact, if people stop buying non-EV’s entirely, that might eventually slow down EV adoption since existing car owners will be unable to trade in their vehicles to buy EV’s.
    - bobsil1 5y ago
      ICE trade-in value will crash as mfrs exit the market, parts will become scarce.
cma 5y ago
As long as we are limited on battery production capacity, plugin hybrids save a lot more carbon emissions (you can make several of them for every full electric).
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Only if you ignore all the carbon emissions going into constructing internal combustion engines, plus all the oils and oil derivatives used to lubricate them, plus all the carbon emissions of actually using the ICE part of a hybrid.
  - cma 5y ago
    > plus all the carbon emissions of actually using the ICE part of a hybrid. If we are supply constrained on batteries, you can't just ignore this. It's e.g. either 1 full electric and 5 gas cars, or 6 plug in hybrids. You don't have to ignore the lubrication oil etc. as you are saying. Just look at total carbon for the two alternatives (not the only options, less cars and more buses is another option).
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      You are presuming a zero sum game here, that no matter what "6 cars get made" and that we can't just slow production until supply catches up. Slowing production may be bad for the laborers of the company in the short term as it probably means fewer factory shifts and fewer workers get paid, but it also means less downstream supply of cars on the market, potentially an increased pressure on price to meet demand, so also potentially good for the company bottom line if they demand higher prices during the constrained period. Slowing production would be great for total carbon output.
      - cma 5y ago
        Slowing production is my bus option. Also without something like "cash for clunkers," slowing production potentially keeps less efficient stuff in play for much longer.
andrei_says_ 5y ago
> throwing their weight around to try to cheat out some legislative relevance rather than compete on product So well said and - a market economy cannot really coexist with an environment allowing buying legislation.
atoav 5y ago
> anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all over the place In Germany this is not the case. Also: A typical residential building over here has 3× 230 V / 63 A which results in ~43 kW. Medium charging power mentioned by Tesla is 11 kW (16 A), so if we wanna leave some headroom for the residents you can charge 2-3 Teslas maximum there at once. Of course you could dig out the electrical cable leading to the house, add another house connection etc. but that would also mean all the electrics of the whole house have to be brought up to current standards etc. Also at some point the main cable under the road will be the limiting factor, and this has to go as well. I think EVs have an advantage over hydrogen now that they are not in totally widespread use, because their true infrastructure cost will only appear once everybody wants to charge them at once, and this is certainly not the case right now.
- prodent 5y ago
  I think cars have an advantage over horses now that they are not in widespread use, because their true infrastructure cost will only appear once everyone wants to get gas at once, and this is certainly not the case right now.
  - atoav 5y ago
    Yeah, because you pump your gas over the whole night at home — sure. If 80% of cars of a house need to be charged in the morning because everybody uses it to go to work, and they use it during the day where else are they gonna charge it than at home and when else are they gonna charge it than after work? Charging a EV takes longer than pumping gas which is why collisions are more likely. The whole thing might work if the charging stations auto-negotiate some compromise, and leave some cars uncharged or charge some cars less, but waking up and have your car not fully charged will ot be a rare occurance based on the physics of our existing infrastructure alone. You cannot draw more than 43 kW at once in the very typical example building (in fact it might be much less). Also: everything upstream of those houses (cables, fuses, transformer stations, ...) assumes a certain load factor, running every single house near full load at once is not something that might be feasible, without digging open the street, exchanging that cable, transformer etc.
SrslyJosh 5y ago
> Elon's early responses to this remain true (grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc.) - there's been nearly zero progress in hydrogen fuel cells. Reminder that Elon bought his way into Tesla. I'm sure those are all things that Tesla's founders pointed out when they pitched the investment to him. =)
crooked-v 5y ago
People talk about battery fires in cars, but boy, are the willies I get from the thought of driving around with a pressurized hydrogen tank about a thousand times worse than whatever small chance of having a battery ignite.
AmVess 5y ago
Hydrogen for vehicles is very nearly fully developed. Honda says their upcoming generation is no more expensive to manufacture than an ICE vehicle. The problem isn't with hydrogen vehicles, it is with the production of hydrogen itself. Once (IF) humanity licks the generation of electricity problem, hydrogen vehicles will be the mode of transportation for nearly everyone.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  > Honda says their upcoming generation is no more expensive to manufacture than an ICE vehicle. A hydrogen vehicle from Honda (or Toyota) is an EV (electric motor, lithium ion battery) with an expensive fuel cell ("weird battery") and expensive fuel tank tacked on (and maybe missing an electric plug). An admission that they've got the cost of Hydrogen cars down to the same costs an ICE vehicle is an underhanded admission that they can build EV cars cheaper than ICE. (The problem is with hydrogen vehicles. It's a funny red herring to just producing good cheap EVs.)
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > A hydrogen vehicle from Honda (or Toyota) is an EV Yes, FCEVs are EVs, just like BEVs are.
golemiprague 5y ago
When you say "look around" you mean in an American suburb? Toyota sells cars all over the world where many people don't have a garage with access to electricity for their cars to charge. So they still need to build the infrastructure, whether it is privately in apartment building outside parking or in the streets or in petrol stations, which takes time to charge. Many countries also don't have resources like the US and therefore producing electricity means import of some fuel. Hydrogen can be produced anywhere and that's why for many countries it could be much more attractive. Not to mention the environmental cost of creating batteries. So altogether Toyota has pretty good reasons to think what they think.
robomartin 5y ago
> grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc. I find it really interesting how people tend to repeat these "facts" over and over again and nobody fires-up Excel to go through some math and see if any of it makes any sense. I have. And I can't see how the infrastructure can possibly support a transition to a fully electric ground transportation system, well, ever. Basic numbers: How much power do we need to support the entire US fleet of cars going electric? The simplest assumption is one where 100% of the fleet uses 8 hour long charge cycles: daily charge energy 50,000 Wh cars 300,000,000 cars long charge 8 hours fast charge 0.5 hours Portion charging long 100% Portion charging fast 0% % of long-chargers charging simultaneously 100% % of short-chargers charging simultaneously 0% Total daily energy requirement 15,000 GWh Cars long-charging simultaneously 100,000,000 cars Cars short-charging simultaneously 0 cars Power for simultaneous long charging 1,875 GW Power for simultaneous short charging 0 GW Total power requirement 1,875 GW This isn't realistic, you are not going to have 300 million cars charging simultaneously during the same eight hours. Or, are we? If every hour we have, say, 1/8 of the entire fleet plug in for eight hours to charge, what's the maximum number of vehicles that will be charging simultaneously at any point in the day? The assumption is that car will charge for eight hours and be off charge for 16. Well, eight hours into the day we will, in fact, have 300 million cars charging simultaneously. After a full 24 hours from the start of this approach, the minimum number of cars charging simultaneously will be 187.5 million and the maximum 300 million. So, yes, at peak utilization we will will have 300 million cars, requiring that we deliver 50 kWh in 8 hours, which means a peak requirement of 1,875 GW. This means we need nearly two thousand giga-watt class nuclear power plants to support a fleet where 100% of the vehicles will slow charge. What happens when some percentage of the fleet needs to fast charge? I am defining fast charging as delivering 50 kWh in 30 minutes: daily charge energy 50,000 Wh cars 300,000,000 cars long charge 8 hours fast charge 0.5 hours Portion charging long 80% Portion charging fast 20% % of long-chargers charging simultaneously 100% % of short-chargers charging simultaneously 20% Total daily energy requirement 15,000 GWh Cars long-charging simultaneously 240,000,000 cars Cars short-charging simultaneously 12,000,000 cars Power for simultaneous long charging 1,500 GW Power for simultaneous short charging 1,200 GW Total power requirement 2,700 GW Now we need 2,700 giga-watt class nuclear power plants in order to be able to deliver the power needed to support the bulk of the fleet slow-charging and the remainder fast-charging spread across the day. TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED nuclear power plants. Even if I am off by a factor of ten (I threw this together and it is very simplistic), that means nearly 300 nuclear power plants to be built in, say, 30 years. We have to build ten per year and we had to get started yesterday. This is the kind of thing I look at when I talk about not reducing reality to single variables. The amount of energy we delivery by using petroleum is of a scale that is hard to imagine. To go electric we have to find alternative means to deliver some percentage of that energy (because electric cars are more energy-efficient than IC vehicles) to every car on the road every day. This task is far from being simple. Beyond that, the unmitigated mess that US politics has become over the last few decades virtually guarantees we cannot build a single nuclear power plant, much less ten, fifty or a hundred. I think we are going to have some number of people driving electrics and, in the hubris of it all, we are going to ignore the fact that we are going have to burn twice or three times more coal to charge those cars every day. It has all the potential to be a larger mess than what we currently have. I would love for someone to take the time to develop and publish a better model than my mindlessly-simple quick calculation. I know a lot of subtlety could be introduced. That said, I somehow don't think we can escape physics. My guess is we will reach the limits of our available power generation capacity at some number in the low millions of electric vehicles, not sure that means tens of millions. At some point we will face the reality that the energy we transport today in liquid form will have to be provided in electrical form. If that happens in ten years and we suddenly decide "oh, shit, we can't make enough power!" either we get very good at building nuclear power plants at a staggering rate or the fleet of electric vehicles will reach an asymptotic balance point and that will be it for a while. There are no alternative realities here. Physics doesn't tend to grant free lunches. Request: I you (plural, anyone) are going to refute the above and say something like "we will use solar". Please, pretty please, with sugar on top: Do the math first. Most people don't. Hence the problem. To repeat myself: Even if I am off by a factor of ten, the excess power generation capacity we would need to support a fully electrified ground transport system is of staggering proportions.
hattmall 5y ago
EVs really aren't currently viable. There is not enough physical battery material currently extractable to make the bulk of vehicles battery electric. There also the argument that EVs are not cleaner, most pollution from cars is actually due to braking and rubber tire deterioration, of which the heavier weight if EVs produces more. Carbon emissions are an issue but we are really really good at filtering them and getting better. The carbon costs of material extraction and electrical generation to power all cars if they were EVs absolutely had the potential to approach or exceed future expected emissions as we continue to improve low emission vehicles. The real future unless there is a serious battery revolution is going to get in alternative fuel hybrids, with limited full capacity EV capabilities. It's going to be a mix of the best of all technologies instead of a straight transition. Rechargable, gas / fuel cell hybrids.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Hydrogen cells do work, it is just not economically feasible yet. But it may not have the scaling problems like EV will have when widely spread. It is false that we have the infrastructure, there are already occasions where people were asked not to charge their vehicles in peak times. And this is for a tiny percentage of people actually owning EV. Their lobbying should still be condemned.
ehvatum 5y ago
Indeed, hydrogen fuel cells have achieved precisely what the big automakers intended. GM unveiled their “leapfrog strategy” in 2003 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/11/the-car-of-tomorrow https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/11/the-car-of-tom... GM even built a Disney exhibit to cover themselves in hydrogen glory while forever continuing to sell gas and diesel SUVs and pickups. I am reminded of the Cali Cartel’s big PR push about how they were abandoning cocaine as product and violence as a tool.
tikiman163 5y ago
Why did you think they keep pushing hydrogen fuel cells as the future? They know we're no where close to solving that problem, and if they ever do, the oil industry owns all the relevant patents. This is a simple case of the currently rich caring more about staying rich than if all the infrastructure collapses. A few of them believe the apocalypse is coming, and actually believe they can arrange matters so that they can control the remaining population'access to food and water after it happens, allowing them to become regional dictators. It's a lot of blind stupidity from idiots with inherited wealth. We should seriously consider upping the inheritance taxes to 100% for any amount over $5 million. The founders put that tax in place specifically to try and prevent idiots from inheriting extreme wealth they could never have earned through thier own efforts. Any argument that the US is a meritocracy kind of falls apart as soon as you consider that small, but extremely consequential point.

weaksauce 5y ago

until there are chargers for the masses or some kind of new tech comes along that can charge as fast as filling up the tank or the batteries can hold way more range than they do it is not going to work for the majority of people with cars. too many people can't plug in overnight to charge. electrics are superior for the people that they are superior for.

slg 5y ago
>a Model 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can recover up to 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour.[1] I agree we need more public chargers, but I don't think "chargers are too slow" is really a valid forward looking argument anymore. [1] - https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Faster charger are coming, too. Tesla already announced 300 kW https://electrek.co/2021/07/15/tesla-upgrading-supercharger-network-to-300-kw-faster-charging/ https://electrek.co/2021/07/15/tesla-upgrading-supercharger-... and Ionity is already offering 350 kW https://ionity.eu/en/design-and-tech.html https://ionity.eu/en/design-and-tech.html But the most important thing is the curve, not the peak rate. It's improving fast https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-charging-range-test-review/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-charging... and will improve further with the 4680 cells next year.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  > I don't think "chargers are too slow" is really a valid forward looking argument anymore. The problem is how many cars can be serviced by a single charging center in a given amount of time. Think about a weekend with good weather, or holiday weekends, when many people are taking trips on the same days. Normally, because filling a gas tank takes 5-10 minutes, cars can cycle in and out of ubiquitous gas stations very quickly. The same isn't true for charging, at least with the current footprint of chargers out there, especially with differences in charging architectures.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  I say this as a Tesla owner. Chargers are still too slow to appease a LOT of people. A 15-30 minute charge every 2-3 hours is unacceptable to people who expect a 5 minute gas-up every 3-4 hours. And while the supercharger network is expanding, the fact is, for a road trip, you'll still likely want to plan your charging stops ahead of time, and many people don't want to do this. With a gas car, you can easily just wing it with zero planning since no matter where you are, there's a gas station within 15 miles. The "charge rates up to 1,000 miles per hour" is only accurate when your battery is under what, 30%? IIRC, charging speed falls off almost linearly with state of charge.
fossuser 5y ago
I'd bet against you. The majority of people with cars can use EVs today fine. There are some exceptional outlier cases and even those people can rely on super chargers or charging stations (which are expanding rapidly).
- derbOac 5y ago
  The majority of people I know who have cars would not be ok with EVs because they just don't have the range. The people I do know who are fine with EVs almost don't even need vehicles at all to be honest -- they could be using public transportation or biking or walking instead (I don't mean to suggest they shouldn't be using an EV, only that their alternatives often aren't combustion vehicles). I do think there are a lot of people who could be happily using EVs, but I don't think it's a majority. As for charging stations, I think many people who are still using combustion engines want to see a charging station at every gas station, or of equivalent geographic density. Distribution could be there but it's far from that now.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Many people are afraid of the range, but don't actually drive anywhere near it day to day. EV range is also continuing to improve. I suspect/predict we'll see adoption continue to accelerate. I think a lot of the resistance is just status quo bias.
    - derbOac 5y ago
      FWIW, I think eventually EVs will dominate the market. It's a matter of when, not if (unless hydrogen makes a splash somehow). The issue with trips is yes, many people don't drive anywhere near that range on a daily per-trip basis. However, people don't buy cars on a trip-by-trip basis, they buy a car to handle the range of regularly encountered transportation scenarios they encounter. So even if people only make, say, 7% of their trips outside the range of an EV, they don't want to go and rent a car to do that if they already own a car. They want to have a car that will do that, plus the one or two trips per week that go well outside that range. They don't want to rent another car every week or two to do that. Add to that a conservative 50% reduction in range in the winter (per Consumer Reports), range is currently a concern. I guess I just think the range-per-trip metric can be misleading, because that can equate to a relatively large number of trips per time, especially given the expense of a car, regardless of technology.
space_rock 5y ago
We need some sort of infrastructure that delivers electricity around a country and only then will this work
- mlinhares 5y ago
  I see what you did here :D
  - space_rock 5y ago
    It always amazes me people use the infrastructure argument against EV adoption. Electricity infrastructure is nearly universal worldwide and clearly more available than gasoline. Also recharge times on new Teslas is very impressive of not irrelevant to most of the population that can recharge at home
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      And even if they admit that the infrastructure exist, they vastly overestimate the amount of power needed to charge an EV at home. People actually believe you need a 150kW+ charger at home, when reality is that if you have a socket that can handle an electric kettle, you can charge an EV from it.
RangerScience 5y ago
Until the demand for chargers hits a tipping point and starts replacing corner gas stations... Yes, you do still have the charge time issue, but that's why chargers get paired up with places. Right now there's two (slow) charging stalls at my mid-tier local grocery-store-etc mall (Albertsons), and (ofc) none at the low-tier (Big Saver). There's plenty of room for more, and while my local grocery mall doesn't have a gas station in it, most do. Replace those with charging infrastructure, and we'll get past that tipping point.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  In Finland the largest charger networks are owned by the two largest ... grocery chains. Their locations are already next to traffic hubs, stores already have a beefy electrical hook up and a car full of people stopping for 15-45 minutes to charge is excellent for business.
  - RangerScience 5y ago
    Yup! Because Tesla charges waaay more for time at a charger not charging, I'm starting to like the slower chargers since it gives more time for whatever I'm up to at the location. 30m is enough to pop into Trader Joe's, but not enough for a restaurant (as an example)
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      Electric motors are also superior to combustion engines in pretty much every way. The biggest issue is mobile energy storage in sufficient quantities. With a train-sized diesel generator the problem goes away :)
echelon 5y ago
There are a number of problems with EVs that ICEs handle much better. Trucking and logistics is very time dependent, so stopping to recharge imposes severe logistical constraints. You can't have every truck stay at the same pit stop. There isn't enough space or time. Large apartment complexes are plentiful. A 1,000-resident building complex full of EVs will draw a lot of power. Can the grid handle it? What happens when the power goes out? How will residents of states that snow over in the winter will fare? Do they have to stop using their vehicles? Long trips by car suddenly become more painful, which will likely shift more traffic to air travel. ------ Edit ----- I have a "bad contributor" flag on my account [1]. I had a response to this comment [2] that I wanted to make but can't. I'll include it here for lack of an ability to post on HN: I just looked at my coke zero can (bad habit), and it's using potassium citrate as an acid buffer. Inflammation is a tax on the immune system and puts it in a state that is mainly intended for dealing with pathogen and cancer clearance. Over time, endothelial and genetic damage can accrue, resulting in hastened aging and system dysfunction. Increased cell population recruitment from the thymus also diminishes the organ's size in age, reducing immune system capacity to deal with these threats. Not news I wanted today, but something I needed to hear. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27959642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27959642 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27963171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27963171
- fossuser 5y ago
  Trucking has tradeoffs in both directions - EVs are cheaper, and easier to maintain, trucks are huge and can have a lot of battery capacity. I think what's better depends on specific circumstance. For large apartment complexes there will probably need to be some load balancing, but seems manageable. Power going out doesn't seem like that big of a deal, more likely to have some charge in the car and it's more likely to find power than gas in a crisis (long lines at gas stations etc.) Long trips by car via super charger are pretty easy for everything except 700+mi trips which are very rare for vast majority. Unlikely to shift anything to air travel, if anything lower EV fuel costs could shift other direction. For snow my parents have had only EVs in Buffalo and have been fine. They also drive down the east coast to Florida.
  - 5y ago
derbOac 5y ago
My wife and I recently purchased a new car. We have strongly been considering an EV, but went with a hybrid because even though EVs were well within our price range, we couldn't depend on one. The infrastructure just isn't there, nor is the range. Maybe when we replace our other car it will make sense as that one is driven much shorter distances and we'd have the other one for longer distances (both are hybrids). This isn't even getting into issues with having to upgrade our electrical box and wiring to handle car charging in our garage. I would never buy a Tesla because I see better options in the EV space, but I do give them a lot of credit and thanks for introducing competition in the area and turning EVs into a product to covet. To me that's always been the best way to handle these sorts of things, to introduce competition and win people over. Lightbulbs were the same way -- the arguments died when quality affordable LEDs came on the market and took away any argument for anything else. When there's big range, reliable and affordable EVs with quick ubiquitous charging, people will flock to EVs. Sometimes I feel like these discussions are in a bubble, to be honest. When I think of the people I know, and what's in the parking lot, getting them to migrate to a hybrid is really where there would be any movement. Maybe someday they'll just jump to an EV and skip hybrids but at the moment there's lots of people who won't even consider anything but a full combustion system. I also don't really fault Toyota for pursuing hydrogen and would really like to see that continue at least as a research focus. It is much more energy dense and solves a lot of problems. I realize it's not as fully there yet as EVs, but EVs aren't either if anyone is being completely honest. The article casts Toyota in a nefarious light, but in some ways I feel like if the government is going to get involved and start playing favorites, they should do so in a competitive and diversified way. Otherwise maybe they should get out of the way and just incentivize competition per se. In fact, if the EV market is so healthy, maybe the government should be subsidizing alternatives like hydrogen?
- evanrich 5y ago
  > I would never buy a Tesla because I see better options in the EV space Out of curiosity, who do you see as a better option and why?
  - fossuser 5y ago
    I'm also curious - I looked at a lot of EVs (maybe all that were available?) before getting the Model 3 (and had a Fiat 500e prior to that). None of them really came close in features and most were not competitive on cost either.
woeirua 5y ago
The overwhelming majority of households use their cars such that one essentially is used only for commuting and running errands on the weekend. The second car, can quite easily be electric given the state of today's technology, and that's the sweet spot for it right now. Once prices come down I would be surprised to see people not have at least one electric car in their garage. Gas hybrids are vastly superior though for long distance traveling. The infrastructure just isnt there yet, and charging for an hour sucks.
- natch 5y ago
  Two EVs are way easier to manage than one EV and one ICE car. Because you can trade them off at a distant charger.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  That's exactly the model my household follows (or will follow once I return to my office commute) - one small EV (with a short, 110 mile range) for the daily commute, and one Hybrid for longer trips or hauling more stuff/people. We'd probably just have the EV and rent a car for longer trips, but we needed a second car for my spouse anyway who works from home full time.
ygjb 5y ago
Is this just your opinion, or do you actually have data to back up your claims here? I ask because there was a 5 year old study that illustrated that in 2016 87% of trips were within range for an electric vehicle with overnight charging. https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2016112 https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2016112 Range anxiety is a real thing, but we settled on a PHEV SUV with a 40km range last year due to not finding the right mix of towing capacity and range in an electric vehicle (we need to routinely use a trailer that can haul >1500 lbs for business reasons). That 40km range covers approximately 3/4 quarters (74.38) of our routine driving (I actually have this data, we were surprised that it came out to such a round number!) We expect to sell our current vehicle and switch to a full electric SUV with similar capabilities once they are available in 2021/2022.
- nradov 5y ago
  Range isn't the problem, lack of charging stations is. Drive around any city at night and look how many cars are parked overnight on streets and in parking lots with no chargers anywhere near. That infrastructure can be built but it will take decades.
  - fattire 5y ago
    Why would it take decades?
    - nradov 5y ago
      Equipment costs, limited city budgets, permit process, labor availability, local transformer capacity, etc.
      - theshrike79 5y ago
        A charging station costs an order of magnitude less than a petrol station Why would cities need to pay a dime for charging infrastructure? There are commercial vendors doing just fine. Which do you think is the hardest to get a permit for? 1) underground tank for thousands of gallons of explosive liquid that's bad for the environment if it leaks 2) overground tank of pressurised explosive gas known for its ability to leak out of every container 3) a big-ass electric socket As for labor, you need an electrician with a high voltage certificate. Not a exactly rare, hard to train, commodity. Maybe a dude with a backhoe to dig the wires. Local transformer capacity is highly variable, some areas might have issues, others might not. A charging station can bring stability to unstable networks if paired with a battery bank to offset the load. (And maybe even make $$ by charging it during low load and feed back during peak hours).
cronix 5y ago
I kind of like what Nio is doing with batteries in their cars - quickly swap them out and be on your way instead of sitting there for an hour+ charging. It obviously wouldn't work everywhere as it requires a substantial infrastructure compared to a charging station (so economical in dense populated areas). But it's essentially as fast as filling up with regular gasoline. Pull in, battery gets swapped in minutes, pull out. BaaS (Batteries as a Service). It also lowers the price of the car up front since you don't pay for the massive battery, which is the largest cost portion of an electric vehicle. https://www.nio.com/blog/nio-completes-2000000-battery-swaps https://www.nio.com/blog/nio-completes-2000000-battery-swaps
- bruceb 5y ago
  Maybe battery swaping will work this time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29
  - Animats 5y ago
    Even things that used to do battery swapping, such as forklifts, are moving away from that. Now that battery forklifts can get through a workday on one charge, it's easier to just recharge during off hours.
Server6 5y ago
Most people can charge at home overnight. According the US census 65% of adults own their own home. Sure infrastructure needs built out for the remaining 35% of renters. However the demand won't be there for a while since most renters are likely younger and/or lower income and not the current target market for EVs.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Some of those 65% (condo and rowhouse owners and places where on-street parking is prevalent) will also need some amount of shared/public charging infrastructure.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    It's easy to do. There are electric cables everywhere (every street lamp, for example). Also, I'm old enough to remember when one had to pay for wifi at hotels and restaurants. I bet we won't pay for charging a car at some point and/or at some time of the day (plugging your car will help the grid due to the share of renewables, you may even be paid for the service). See https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/california-virtual-power-plant https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/californi...
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  Owning a home does not imply the ability to charge a car. It is common for homeowners to park cars on the street out of necessity.
- natch 5y ago
  Some apartment renters can charge at home too. Just depends on the setup. But sure some can’t.
akudha 5y ago
A woman was saying (on Reddit, I think) that she is not comfortable sitting for an hour at the charging station. If I hadn't read that, I would've never thought of the safety angle for female EV owners. I hope EVs surpass gas guzzlers, but there are some issues to fix before that can happen.
- fattire 5y ago
  Leaving aside "sitting for an hour" (?), isn't it much safer to charge 99% of the time in your own garage and never have to regularly step out of your car alone at a dark gas station on the corner? Even on a long drive you leave home with a "full tank" without having that first stop to gas up.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Yeah - plus superchargers are typically in busy public areas often with security (unlike many gas stations). It feels fairly contrived, I'm skeptical it's not just anti-ev motivated reasoning.
    - natch 5y ago
      No need for security, Tesla owners watch out for each other.
      - natch 5y ago
        To put it another way, people charging EVs tend to look out for each other and help each other. At Tesla chargers, since they have multiple plugs in one spot, there are often other friendly people there charging so you feel safer and more secure. So even without security guards it is a good setup for leaving your car or for being there in a strange parking lot.
- natch 5y ago
  People draw a lot of scary conclusions based on what they know about bad EV choices. It all depends on what car you choose. With Teslas at least, you don’t sit for an hour, since they have fast chargers all over the place. In other cars, yes. Some of our charges are 5-10 minutes. On a road trip most are 20-30 minutes. The longest charge is if you need to get to a place that is near the edge of your range, which is exceedingly rare, even on long road trips. In those highly unusual cases you might have to charge for 45-50 minutes for that one leg of the trip, if you didn’t arrive with half a charge already. Again this is with a supercharger. Other cars… yes, scary charge times. (You will hear about how some cars… Porsche… can charge at a faster rate, but the chargers to support this are rare, so their fast rate is often not possible and they are stuck at a slow charger for hours.) Also with other cars you are sitting there alone often at a single plug station. With Tesla chargers you are generally not alone, you are with other Tesla owners who have your back if anything suspicious starts happening around the area.
natch 5y ago
We owned two Teslas for two years with no place to plug in at home. But we did have local charging options. You would be surprised how easy it can be, if you live in the right place. However, I’ll be the first to admit that this is a big if. Now we manage to keep two Teslas charged with one single 110 outlet. It’s plenty for around town. We even have nights where we go to bed without plugging in either car, because they are both already 80% full, which is a good place to stop for battery health.
bananabreakfast 5y ago
They already have chargers for the masses. Superchargers are all over the place and charge nearly as fast as filling up a tank. Most people wildly underestimate how much time they spend at a gas station filling up gas anyway. Range is not really an issue either. Unless you're regularly road tripping 400+ miles, an EV will handle the trip just fine.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  > Superchargers are all over the place and charge nearly as fast as filling up a tank. This is not at all true. Filling up even a larger 25 gallon gas tank can be done within 10 minutes. Even the newest Tesla Model S Plaid on the fastest supercharger takes 52 minutes to go from 5% to 95% (https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-charging-analysis/ https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-chargin...). > Range is not really an issue either. Unless you're regularly road tripping 400+ miles, an EV will handle the trip just fine. Range can be an issue for numerous reasons. Your range changes based on load, temperature, and the road. If you're driving in cold conditions, uphill, with passengers and cargo, your range isn't 400 miles - it might be half that. Plus even the longest range Tesla currently gets only 396 miles under the ideal conditions of the EPA cycle. Unlike with gas cars, you can't just carry an extra can of electric charge to cover yourself for a rare longer journey.
  - nickik 5y ago
    > Even the newest Tesla Model S Plaid on the fastest supercharger takes 52 minutes to go from 5% to 95% The thing is, you don't actually do that in practice. Go and actually listen to the insideev podcast. The Tesla will tell you where to stop for how long. Typically on a road-trip you actually make a few more stops and only charge from 5% to 60%. Unless you are a really extreme road tripper, peeing and getting a quick snake is more then enough. The guys on insideev actually do a huge amount of road tripping (with all kinds of cars) and they prefer EV to ICE for almost all trips. And in most cases the charging doesn't hold you up much at all. Also guess what, if you drive uphill with cargo in extreme temperatures you also use more gas and your car doesn't get its normal mileage. With an EV you actually get much of that energy back when going down the mountain on the other side. Also, this is probably less then 0.1% of all miles driven. So it really doesn't work as an argument and doesn't apply to 95% of the people. And for another 3% it likely doesn't apply for more then 1-2 a year. Nobody is saying that EV are literally perfect for every single case ever. But as a practical matter, they are simply better for the majority of people already.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Elon's early responses to this remain true (grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc.) And Battery tech is "good enough" for most (99%) trips.

freedomben 5y ago
and if we destroy any market that isn't electric by punishing gas/hydrogen/etc, what does that do to the 1%? Sorry you're out of luck, just move to the city and change careers/lifestyle? Also note that a lot of that 1% are the trucks that bring goods into the city.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  Who is talking about punishing hydrogen? And what about the fact that gas is currently massively subsidised, is removing subsidy a "punishment"? And what about the fact that we all need this air to breathe and we're all collectively subsidising this lifestyle with our health? Also note that trucks bringing goods into a city could still be subsidised separately from other things if we chose, and that bulk goods distribution have more options for on-premises fuel tanks than people's homes do, things don't have to be binary.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    When you subsidize competitors to hydrogen (such as electricity), it punishes hydrogen. Toyota et al are asking to reduce these subsidies. I don't know whether gas is subsidized or not, but if it is, I agree, remove the subsidy!
    - bananabreakfast 5y ago
      ha yes. Gas is wildly subsidized so consumers have cheap fuel prices to support the car based economy. Same as corn, dairy, etc...
      - 5y ago

partiallypro 5y ago

Charging still takes a long time and has relatively low mileage. Hydrogen doesn't have that problem and in the end accounting for lithium mining destroying the environment I still don't think it's that clear cut. EV just has more adoption because it's easier at this point and perks don't want to fall behind against Tesla. I also don't see how Toyota "deserves" to lose. When you take into consideration their longevity and fairly good track record on gas mileage...they are better than a lot of manufacturers that are now pushing hard for electric. People tend to forget that manufacturing a car and replacing a car wears on the environment just as much as driving it.

deelowe 5y ago
> relatively low mileage You can get a base model 3 today with 263 to 353 miles of range. That's upwards of 3-4 hours of driving with no breaks. Stop to take a break at a super charger for 30 minutes and you can do another 3-4 hours. How is this still no practical especially combined with all the time and money they save not having to do most routine maintenance.
- partiallypro 5y ago
  That also depends on passenger weight, or if you're hauling something. The new electric trucks plummet on mileage if they are carrying weight. I understand that gasoline vehicles do the same thing, but not at such a steep rate. I don't think a lot of commenters here have much experience living in rural environments. This doesn't even begin to touch on the ability to repair the vehicles.
  - NotSammyHagar 5y ago
    All vehicles plummet in range pulling heavy loads at high speed. You notice it more in a vehicle with careful range estimation, and slower refuling. If you need to drive 600 miles a day pulling a heavy trailer, EVs don't work for you right now. Similarly my wife's Toyota Camry does not work for that either.
  - chillwaves 5y ago

Animats 5y ago

Toyota is still trying to sell their hydrogen-powered Mirai.[1] After six years, they're selling a few hundred a month, all in California because that's where there are some hydrogen stations. The hydrogen station situation is a joke.[2] Not only are there few of them, most of them are offline.[2] Right now, not one hydrogen station in the South Bay is working. [1] https://www.toyota.com/mirai/ https://www.toyota.com/mirai/ [2] https://cafcp.org/stationmap https://cafcp.org/stationmap

jdavis703 5y ago
You can’t buy a Mirai, you can only lease them. And they’re only sold in CA because they’re a so called “compliance car” designed to appease regulators. Personal story, when I tried to lease one they wanted me to share my social media info because they only wanted to lease them to “influencers.” Seemed like a bizarre way to run a business, and since I’m not an influencer I looked elsewhere.
- coolspot 5y ago
  Maybe it was true at some point, but not anymore - you absolutely can buy a Mirai. https://www.toyota.com/search-inventory/page/results/year/2021/series/mirai https://www.toyota.com/search-inventory/page/results/year/20...
natch 5y ago
Also they’ve had a few explosions. Usually hydrogen delivery trucks, but they list them as explosions “at the plant” in what I guess is a trick to hide the fact that these trucks that are driving around city streets can explode. Then also some at retail filling stations.
FreakyT 5y ago
The key difference between Toyota's approach and Tesla's was simple: Tesla built out their own charging infrastructure. Just like with battery-electric-vehicles, there's a chicken and egg problem: no one will buy a car if there's nowhere to charge/fuel it, but no one will build fueling/charging stations if no one has that type of car. If Toyota was serious about hydrogen, they should have done what Tesla did, and built a countrywide network of hydrogen stations.

Razengan 5y ago

> cheat out some legislative relevance rather than compete on product. Many companies being disrupted do that (see recent viasat story, US car dealerships, etc.) Or all the recent hullabaloo against Apple’s App Store

antattack 5y ago

Toyota made a bet that they will leap over current EV teach with their, "soon to come", solid state batteries. With all battery production capacity already spoken for, Toyota has to slow down EV adoption, convince us that hybrids are still a thing. If unsuccessful, they stand to loose market share soon.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
By the time solid state battery are thing, Tesla will be much bigger (and moving faster) in the EV space, so it's highly probable that the industry (including cell manufacturers) will line up to support Tesla rather than Toyota. Also, Tesla's margins are improving to a point where they'll soon be more profitable than Toyota and be able to pay a better price for any cell production capacity available (solid state or not). It's getting really late for the Japanese giant and they're still in denial (a good friend of mine is responsible for the deployment of Mirai in Europe and he's well aware that).

glogla 5y ago

> Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure and hydrogen was a worse solution to the problem. I believe it is more sinister - most of hydrogen currently available is made "almost free" from natural gas. So behind hydrogen, I would expect current Oil and Gas companies that are trying to stay relevant - and hydrogen is perfect for greenwashing, since it could in theory be made from green electricity and thus zero emission - but that will never be price competitive with hydrogen from natural gas, unless we start counting externalities.

throwawayboise 5y ago

> anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all over the place Not where I am. They are rare enough that it's still something of a novelty to see one (I'm talking about pure EVs like a Tesla, not hybrids). Toyota may be seeing that EVs will be a mass-market fiasco in many parts of the country where charging infrastructure is sparse, winters are cold, and even 200+ mile range can be a real limit and want to be able to continue to sell hybrids and ICE vehicles to those customers who prefer/require them.

Lammy 5y ago
"I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car. A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time. Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar! Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…"
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  A lot of people think this song is about driving an illegal gas engine, but its really about driving a car with illegally low safety features. Honestly the cyber truck feels like what the source material was envisioning, but not due to the electric part
- wumpus 5y ago
  That song is an excellent example of Libertarian fiction that didn't happen, but it still regarded to be a cautionary tale. Which brings me to the joke about Lord of the Rings and The Fountainhead...
rplst8 5y ago
Yes, there needs to be support for ICE vehicles in certain areas for quite some time to come. Until EV technology can support those that rely on gasoline or diesel powered cars in remote places. Once the fossil fuel infrastructure starts to lose mainstream use, folks that require larger range, better cold weather reliability, etc. will pay through the nose to be able to move freely using their existing cars. It will be a slow transition until it's not, and then you have a bunch of useless piles of steel, glass, and rubber lying around. I wonder how they will handle emergency and military vehicles in the future. For any of them to use it it has to just work, and work quickly.

mustafa_pasi 5y ago

>Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure That is not true. Hybrids can be greener than an full EV. To make EVs palatable, automakers realized they need to use huge batteries with 400+ miles of range. But the average daily commute is much much less than that. The result of which is that you waste a lot of money and CO2 emissions to produce a battery that is 3x too big. A hybrid with a range extender and 1/3 of the battery, can better accommodate the needs of daily commuters while actually being cleaner than an EV since the CO2 emissions from EV manufacturing is almost entirely due to the battery and it takes years (two to three depending on your commute) to offset those emission even against a new ICE car.

lumost 5y ago
This assumes the engine, fuel infrastructure, and weight of the ICE engine is free. It also assumes that the electric infrastructure cannot be fully converted to carbon neutral sources. Lastly it assumes that battery technology will improve at a comparable rate to ICE technology which has been extremely wrong in the last 10 years.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  Well, the fuel infrastructure already exists, and the weight of the ICE engine is at least partially offset by the smaller battery. I'm extremely skeptical of any claim that hybrids are better for the environment than EVs in aggregate, but for specific use cases over certain timeframes the difference may be small.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    This assumes that a hybrid has to have a smaller battery to fit the ICE engine and/or that the ICE engine has equivalent weight/density. On the one hand, volume versus weight an ICE engine is generally "lighter" than if that equivalent space were tightly packed with battery cells. But on the other hand a car is not going to tightly pack the equivalent volume, most modern EV designs are a "skateboard" layout with all the batteries on the floor of the car. The front hood of the car is typically at that point unused space and many modern electrics place there now a "frunk" ("front trunk" or "froot"/"front boot" if you prefer Britishisms) for "bonus" cargo space. From that perspective, a hybrid has "free" space for a gas generator by taking "back" the frunk space, but they have to shrink the battery because of the added weight of the gas generator. (The skateboard has the physical space either way, it shrinks to keep the overall car weight below an aerodynamic threshold, not to yield space for the gas generator.)

philwelch 5y ago

> Hybrids were a mediocre half-measure The US currently has just one million EV's and over 5.8 million hybrids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_t...) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_vehicles_in_th...). I think it's a lot more fair to say that hybrids are a transitional solution. They came out in the 90's and still outnumber EV's on the road over 5-1 today, so I'd say we're in the midst of a 30-50 year transition.

bobsil1 5y ago
It’s going to tip a lot faster than that in 2 yrs when EVs are cheaper up front.
- philwelch 5y ago
  New car sales might tip in two years, but that’s a small fraction of cars on the road. The average car on the road is over a decade old. In fact, if people stop buying non-EV’s entirely, that might eventually slow down EV adoption since existing car owners will be unable to trade in their vehicles to buy EV’s.
  - bobsil1 5y ago
    ICE trade-in value will crash as mfrs exit the market, parts will become scarce.

cma 5y ago

As long as we are limited on battery production capacity, plugin hybrids save a lot more carbon emissions (you can make several of them for every full electric).

WorldMaker 5y ago
Only if you ignore all the carbon emissions going into constructing internal combustion engines, plus all the oils and oil derivatives used to lubricate them, plus all the carbon emissions of actually using the ICE part of a hybrid.
- cma 5y ago
  > plus all the carbon emissions of actually using the ICE part of a hybrid. If we are supply constrained on batteries, you can't just ignore this. It's e.g. either 1 full electric and 5 gas cars, or 6 plug in hybrids. You don't have to ignore the lubrication oil etc. as you are saying. Just look at total carbon for the two alternatives (not the only options, less cars and more buses is another option).
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    You are presuming a zero sum game here, that no matter what "6 cars get made" and that we can't just slow production until supply catches up. Slowing production may be bad for the laborers of the company in the short term as it probably means fewer factory shifts and fewer workers get paid, but it also means less downstream supply of cars on the market, potentially an increased pressure on price to meet demand, so also potentially good for the company bottom line if they demand higher prices during the constrained period. Slowing production would be great for total carbon output.
    - cma 5y ago
      Slowing production is my bus option. Also without something like "cash for clunkers," slowing production potentially keeps less efficient stuff in play for much longer.

andrei_says_ 5y ago

> throwing their weight around to try to cheat out some legislative relevance rather than compete on product So well said and - a market economy cannot really coexist with an environment allowing buying legislation.

atoav 5y ago

> anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all over the place In Germany this is not the case. Also: A typical residential building over here has 3× 230 V / 63 A which results in ~43 kW. Medium charging power mentioned by Tesla is 11 kW (16 A), so if we wanna leave some headroom for the residents you can charge 2-3 Teslas maximum there at once. Of course you could dig out the electrical cable leading to the house, add another house connection etc. but that would also mean all the electrics of the whole house have to be brought up to current standards etc. Also at some point the main cable under the road will be the limiting factor, and this has to go as well. I think EVs have an advantage over hydrogen now that they are not in totally widespread use, because their true infrastructure cost will only appear once everybody wants to charge them at once, and this is certainly not the case right now.

prodent 5y ago
I think cars have an advantage over horses now that they are not in widespread use, because their true infrastructure cost will only appear once everyone wants to get gas at once, and this is certainly not the case right now.
- atoav 5y ago
  Yeah, because you pump your gas over the whole night at home — sure. If 80% of cars of a house need to be charged in the morning because everybody uses it to go to work, and they use it during the day where else are they gonna charge it than at home and when else are they gonna charge it than after work? Charging a EV takes longer than pumping gas which is why collisions are more likely. The whole thing might work if the charging stations auto-negotiate some compromise, and leave some cars uncharged or charge some cars less, but waking up and have your car not fully charged will ot be a rare occurance based on the physics of our existing infrastructure alone. You cannot draw more than 43 kW at once in the very typical example building (in fact it might be much less). Also: everything upstream of those houses (cables, fuses, transformer stations, ...) assumes a certain load factor, running every single house near full load at once is not something that might be feasible, without digging open the street, exchanging that cable, transformer etc.

SrslyJosh 5y ago

> Elon's early responses to this remain true (grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc.) - there's been nearly zero progress in hydrogen fuel cells. Reminder that Elon bought his way into Tesla. I'm sure those are all things that Tesla's founders pointed out when they pitched the investment to him. =)

crooked-v 5y ago

People talk about battery fires in cars, but boy, are the willies I get from the thought of driving around with a pressurized hydrogen tank about a thousand times worse than whatever small chance of having a battery ignite.

AmVess 5y ago

Hydrogen for vehicles is very nearly fully developed. Honda says their upcoming generation is no more expensive to manufacture than an ICE vehicle. The problem isn't with hydrogen vehicles, it is with the production of hydrogen itself. Once (IF) humanity licks the generation of electricity problem, hydrogen vehicles will be the mode of transportation for nearly everyone.

WorldMaker 5y ago
> Honda says their upcoming generation is no more expensive to manufacture than an ICE vehicle. A hydrogen vehicle from Honda (or Toyota) is an EV (electric motor, lithium ion battery) with an expensive fuel cell ("weird battery") and expensive fuel tank tacked on (and maybe missing an electric plug). An admission that they've got the cost of Hydrogen cars down to the same costs an ICE vehicle is an underhanded admission that they can build EV cars cheaper than ICE. (The problem is with hydrogen vehicles. It's a funny red herring to just producing good cheap EVs.)
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > A hydrogen vehicle from Honda (or Toyota) is an EV Yes, FCEVs are EVs, just like BEVs are.

golemiprague 5y ago

When you say "look around" you mean in an American suburb? Toyota sells cars all over the world where many people don't have a garage with access to electricity for their cars to charge. So they still need to build the infrastructure, whether it is privately in apartment building outside parking or in the streets or in petrol stations, which takes time to charge. Many countries also don't have resources like the US and therefore producing electricity means import of some fuel. Hydrogen can be produced anywhere and that's why for many countries it could be much more attractive. Not to mention the environmental cost of creating batteries. So altogether Toyota has pretty good reasons to think what they think.

robomartin 5y ago

> grid already exists, people can charge at home, easier to build EV infrastructure, etc. I find it really interesting how people tend to repeat these "facts" over and over again and nobody fires-up Excel to go through some math and see if any of it makes any sense. I have. And I can't see how the infrastructure can possibly support a transition to a fully electric ground transportation system, well, ever. Basic numbers: How much power do we need to support the entire US fleet of cars going electric? The simplest assumption is one where 100% of the fleet uses 8 hour long charge cycles: daily charge energy 50,000 Wh cars 300,000,000 cars long charge 8 hours fast charge 0.5 hours Portion charging long 100% Portion charging fast 0% % of long-chargers charging simultaneously 100% % of short-chargers charging simultaneously 0% Total daily energy requirement 15,000 GWh Cars long-charging simultaneously 100,000,000 cars Cars short-charging simultaneously 0 cars Power for simultaneous long charging 1,875 GW Power for simultaneous short charging 0 GW Total power requirement 1,875 GW This isn't realistic, you are not going to have 300 million cars charging simultaneously during the same eight hours. Or, are we? If every hour we have, say, 1/8 of the entire fleet plug in for eight hours to charge, what's the maximum number of vehicles that will be charging simultaneously at any point in the day? The assumption is that car will charge for eight hours and be off charge for 16. Well, eight hours into the day we will, in fact, have 300 million cars charging simultaneously. After a full 24 hours from the start of this approach, the minimum number of cars charging simultaneously will be 187.5 million and the maximum 300 million. So, yes, at peak utilization we will will have 300 million cars, requiring that we deliver 50 kWh in 8 hours, which means a peak requirement of 1,875 GW. This means we need nearly two thousand giga-watt class nuclear power plants to support a fleet where 100% of the vehicles will slow charge. What happens when some percentage of the fleet needs to fast charge? I am defining fast charging as delivering 50 kWh in 30 minutes: daily charge energy 50,000 Wh cars 300,000,000 cars long charge 8 hours fast charge 0.5 hours Portion charging long 80% Portion charging fast 20% % of long-chargers charging simultaneously 100% % of short-chargers charging simultaneously 20% Total daily energy requirement 15,000 GWh Cars long-charging simultaneously 240,000,000 cars Cars short-charging simultaneously 12,000,000 cars Power for simultaneous long charging 1,500 GW Power for simultaneous short charging 1,200 GW Total power requirement 2,700 GW Now we need 2,700 giga-watt class nuclear power plants in order to be able to deliver the power needed to support the bulk of the fleet slow-charging and the remainder fast-charging spread across the day. TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED nuclear power plants. Even if I am off by a factor of ten (I threw this together and it is very simplistic), that means nearly 300 nuclear power plants to be built in, say, 30 years. We have to build ten per year and we had to get started yesterday. This is the kind of thing I look at when I talk about not reducing reality to single variables. The amount of energy we delivery by using petroleum is of a scale that is hard to imagine. To go electric we have to find alternative means to deliver some percentage of that energy (because electric cars are more energy-efficient than IC vehicles) to every car on the road every day. This task is far from being simple. Beyond that, the unmitigated mess that US politics has become over the last few decades virtually guarantees we cannot build a single nuclear power plant, much less ten, fifty or a hundred. I think we are going to have some number of people driving electrics and, in the hubris of it all, we are going to ignore the fact that we are going have to burn twice or three times more coal to charge those cars every day. It has all the potential to be a larger mess than what we currently have. I would love for someone to take the time to develop and publish a better model than my mindlessly-simple quick calculation. I know a lot of subtlety could be introduced. That said, I somehow don't think we can escape physics. My guess is we will reach the limits of our available power generation capacity at some number in the low millions of electric vehicles, not sure that means tens of millions. At some point we will face the reality that the energy we transport today in liquid form will have to be provided in electrical form. If that happens in ten years and we suddenly decide "oh, shit, we can't make enough power!" either we get very good at building nuclear power plants at a staggering rate or the fleet of electric vehicles will reach an asymptotic balance point and that will be it for a while. There are no alternative realities here. Physics doesn't tend to grant free lunches. Request: I you (plural, anyone) are going to refute the above and say something like "we will use solar". Please, pretty please, with sugar on top: Do the math first. Most people don't. Hence the problem. To repeat myself: Even if I am off by a factor of ten, the excess power generation capacity we would need to support a fully electrified ground transport system is of staggering proportions.

hattmall 5y ago

EVs really aren't currently viable. There is not enough physical battery material currently extractable to make the bulk of vehicles battery electric. There also the argument that EVs are not cleaner, most pollution from cars is actually due to braking and rubber tire deterioration, of which the heavier weight if EVs produces more. Carbon emissions are an issue but we are really really good at filtering them and getting better. The carbon costs of material extraction and electrical generation to power all cars if they were EVs absolutely had the potential to approach or exceed future expected emissions as we continue to improve low emission vehicles. The real future unless there is a serious battery revolution is going to get in alternative fuel hybrids, with limited full capacity EV capabilities. It's going to be a mix of the best of all technologies instead of a straight transition. Rechargable, gas / fuel cell hybrids.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Hydrogen cells do work, it is just not economically feasible yet. But it may not have the scaling problems like EV will have when widely spread. It is false that we have the infrastructure, there are already occasions where people were asked not to charge their vehicles in peak times. And this is for a tiny percentage of people actually owning EV. Their lobbying should still be condemned.

ehvatum 5y ago

Indeed, hydrogen fuel cells have achieved precisely what the big automakers intended. GM unveiled their “leapfrog strategy” in 2003 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/11/the-car-of-tomorrow https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/11/the-car-of-tom... GM even built a Disney exhibit to cover themselves in hydrogen glory while forever continuing to sell gas and diesel SUVs and pickups. I am reminded of the Cali Cartel’s big PR push about how they were abandoning cocaine as product and violence as a tool.

tikiman163 5y ago

Why did you think they keep pushing hydrogen fuel cells as the future? They know we're no where close to solving that problem, and if they ever do, the oil industry owns all the relevant patents. This is a simple case of the currently rich caring more about staying rich than if all the infrastructure collapses. A few of them believe the apocalypse is coming, and actually believe they can arrange matters so that they can control the remaining population'access to food and water after it happens, allowing them to become regional dictators. It's a lot of blind stupidity from idiots with inherited wealth. We should seriously consider upping the inheritance taxes to 100% for any amount over $5 million. The founders put that tax in place specifically to try and prevent idiots from inheriting extreme wealth they could never have earned through thier own efforts. Any argument that the US is a meritocracy kind of falls apart as soon as you consider that small, but extremely consequential point.