5 ms·

I just ordered Kia EV6, friends were laughing: “we get new battery technology in couple years and you car will be soon outdated”. The truth is that the new batt

by lnsru 5y ago

I just ordered Kia EV6, friends were laughing: “we get new battery technology in couple years and you car will be soon outdated”. The truth is that the new battery technology comes every couple months. Never makes to mass production and silently disappears. I must wait for my car almost a year. Volkswagen group delivers car in almost 2 years when I order today. Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles.

bochoh 5y ago
Yes exactly this, I bought a Kona Electric in November and on paper next to Tesla etc it’s not a great car. In reality it’s the best car I’ve ever owned (no hyperbole). I charged every other day for a ~60 mile round trip and never saw a gas pump. Although since then I’m full remote and it just sits in the driveway.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
The new battery tech is coming to market every few months, it's been improving regularly for decades in price/performance etc. I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks. One key repeated talking point is "when our tech gets out the lab in a decade you can fill your EV just like your ICE". I don't want to do that. It was smelly, expensive and inconvenient then, it is even more so now I have a EV that's fully charged every morning when it doesn't even need to be. In 10 years time it'll be nostalgia like a fax machine or sending a telegram.
- tigerlily 5y ago
  > I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks. You should introduce that certain segment to the Briggs & Stratton stock price :)
  - zcw100 5y ago
    I keep saying that EVs are more like a laptop with wheels than a car with a computer.
- natmaka 5y ago
  > it's been improving regularly for decades in price/performance etc. Indeed: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    We need graphs like these about power density and charging times/cycles.
  - IMTDb 5y ago
    Logarithmic axis warning! We see no "breakthrough", just incremental optimisation (fine in itself). The biggest drop happened between 2000 and 2005, and for the past 15 years the progress have slowed (even after accounting for the logarithmic axis !). The conclusion is that battery technologies are incrementally harder to optimise, that progress is slowing and we shouldn't expect anything major unless an actual breakthrough is made. In other words: if your project isn't viable with the current price point, you may hope for a small discount in few years, but don't expect anything major.
    - dghlsakjg 5y ago
      That's a scale for the current champion, lithium-ion. All it tells us is that lithium ion is a mature technology, not that batteries in general are a mature technology. There's plenty of scenarios where a more expensive alternative could take over easily. A more energy dense alternative that cost 2x as much would be a massive win for vehicles and especially aircraft where weight is a huge penalty. Alternatively, a technology with a much lower price even with a much lower energy density could enable a lot of green energy storage projects that are currently uneconomical with current battery technology.
      - rstuart4133 5y ago
        > That's a scale for the current champion, lithium-ion. They are all currently lithium-ion. What they are varying is the ion. The ion makes a big difference LiFePO4 is very different to LiMn and its mates (higher cycles and lifetime, lower energy density). A LiS is a different ion yet again. It's not a 3 fold improvement in energy density like the article says, more like twice the density in both volume and weight. And like LiFePO4, no rare earth minerals. It's downfall has been durability (50 cycles or so), but there are now multiple teams announcing 1000 cycles or better in the lab, all using different approaches. It seems inevitable that someone will figure out how to manufacture one of those chemistries at scale in time. Then you will see a step change by a change in chemistry. Without a change in chemistry all you see is improvements in manufacturing which is a gradual thing.
- lazyier 5y ago
  For your purposes EVs are not crap. For lots of purposes EVs ARE crap. For example my neighbor's job involves driving specialized supplies to a number of retail outlets every day. It's a very niche business that involves pickup truck and 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment. The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid. Electic motor technology is fantastic. Battery technology is miserable. And the reason we don't see "breakthroughs" every month, except those that involve press releases and nothing else, is because ideas and chemistry is cheap. It's easy to get patents. What is hard is actually manufacturing. Taking an idea that works theoretically in a lab versus making it work in reality as a commercial product is similar to learning logging down the street the first time versus winning an olympic medal. In terms of technology what we have now is really just a series of incremental improvements over technology released in the 1990's. The rare earth magnets, the computer control of motor phases, the lithium batteries are all stuff designed for portable Japanese consumer electronics. It's just been supersized and refined for EVs.
  - taylodl 5y ago
    This is an example of "whatabout-ism." There's going to be a counter-example of someone for which EVs make little sense, but that doesn't mean that EVs make little sense for a large group of drivers or maybe even the majority of cases for which ICE vehicles are currently used. Can EVs 100% replace every single ICE vehicle in every single application? No - and they don't need to in order to be highly useful and provide aggregate benefits.
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
      I think the most likely mid-tier outcome will be that in about 25 years or so, the grand majority of cars on the road will be EV, but that industrial companies will primarily use ICE vehicles, and for road trips and other such short term, long-distance, time essential driving events ICE vehicles will be typically available for rent.
      - taylodl 5y ago
magicalhippo 5y ago
> Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles. This is what we realized when we got our BMW i3 a few years ago. Sure, cars with longer range will come soon, but we live in the city and very seldom drive more than 100 miles per day. Unless we move, that's not going to change and the i3 is good enough.
- hinkley 5y ago
  If anything my friends and I are damaging our ICE or hybrid vehicles by taking short trips we have no business taking. Even in cities that have made some progress on walkable neighborhoods, it's often the case that the place you want to be is in the next neighborhood over, which is a worst case scenario for ICE engines. These short trips would be much better in an EV.
incomingpain 5y ago
>I just ordered Kia EV6, friends were laughing: “we get new battery technology in couple years and you car will be soon outdated”. This isn't really the right take. Production at scale isn't happening. Cars won't be the first applications because of huge safety concerns. Much easier to stop a battery fire when it's a cellphone. >I must wait for my car almost a year. Volkswagen group delivers car in almost 2 years when I order today. Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles. Oh ya, it is a matter of time for new battery tech. I believe Tesla will be using a new battery tech in the cyber truck. Then again, where's that at? It's going to be at a premium for sure. Your EV6, ID4, or even BZX4 type vehicles will be the current battery tech for many years. You're going to love your EV6.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  > Then again, where's that at? I believe they're going to be building the Cybertruck at the new Austin plant. The plant is still under construction but looks pretty far along from the highway. It's kinda cool how they built the factory with large glass windows on the outside so you can see in from the road.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  > Cars won't be the first applications because of huge safety concerns. I expect you're right. When I read "higher energy density" I think "closer to being an actual bomb", ha ha.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    >I expect you're right. When I read "higher energy density" I think "closer to being an actual bomb", ha ha. https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Hammond's_Rimac_Crash_(TGT) https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Hammond's_Rimac_Crash_(TGT) That Rimac caught fire and they couldn't stop the fire for days. https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrandtour/comments/7in8bc/comment/dqzzqfh/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrandtour/comments/7in8bc/commen... With higher energy density, for the most part the application will be that we provide a smaller battery for the same range and lower cost. that fire will still be a thing, it's just so much energy. Here's the flipside. Did you know like 1/4 of firemen calls are for gasoline vehicles catching fire? I had a rust bucket that if you braked hard enough gasoline came out of the tank. We are dealing with explosive flammable fluid. EV cars are tremendously safer and even if we invented a battery that only needed recharging twice a year and held immense power. It wouldn't be a bomb. It would just be a crazy fire.
notacoward 5y ago
I just bought a Nissan Leaf+ (love it BTW) and had the same thoughts. I've been following battery technology for at least twenty years. Even invested in a couple of companies. Yes, battery technology continues to improve. Yes, in a few years the range on my new car might seem limited, compared to what's on the market then. But the most important thing is: It's already enough. My nominal range is 215 miles. That's enough to drive around town all week - this car's typical usage pattern - before I have to recharge, and of course I can do that more often if I need to. It's enough to get from here to the ski club we're members of, which we'll probably never even do unless my wife's car breaks down. And that's the key: this is a second car. It doesn't need more range. Maybe in a few more years, if/when battery technology has improved even more, we'll be able to replace my wife's car with one that will get to the club and back without recharging. Maybe when chargers are more ubiquitous, it'll be reasonable to go all the way from eastern Massachusetts to the middle of New York (where my daughter is likely to attend college) in an electric car. Maybe even all the way to Michigan, where I have family. But that's all in the future. In the here-and-now, all of my trips are already emissions free and much cheaper than if I were using gas. Good enough. It's a lot like buying a computer; anything you buy today will be worse than what you could buy in a year, but you can still make better or worse purchases based on technology and price cycles. No reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
- lnsru 5y ago
  I started my search with Dacia Spring (lol), went to Twingo, then to Leaf/Zoe. Battery degradation of these cars were known and looked good to me. Then I discovered full feature battery powered cars like ID.4 and Enyaq from Volkswagen. ID.4 had too much touchscreen. Enyaq had main screen from some back yard sale in Shenzhen. New car with 4” display. Just wow!!! Then I found Kia e-Niro, did a test drive. Was not big enough. Then did test drive of EV6 with all wheel drive and I really liked it. It will be our single car in the family trading in BMW 3 series. However BMW is a a nicer car with better build quality.
_0ffh 5y ago
>we get new [...] technology in couple years and your [...] will be soon outdated I suppose these guys have never bought and will never buy a computer?
hinkley 5y ago
I have my eye on the EV6 but I'm bummed that the moon roof is only on the most expensive option (practically Tesla prices), and that when these products were announced they were supposed to come with Witricity's wireless charger, which seems to have been abandoned.

by lnsru 5y ago

bochoh 5y ago

Yes exactly this, I bought a Kona Electric in November and on paper next to Tesla etc it’s not a great car. In reality it’s the best car I’ve ever owned (no hyperbole). I charged every other day for a ~60 mile round trip and never saw a gas pump. Although since then I’m full remote and it just sits in the driveway.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

The new battery tech is coming to market every few months, it's been improving regularly for decades in price/performance etc. I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks. One key repeated talking point is "when our tech gets out the lab in a decade you can fill your EV just like your ICE". I don't want to do that. It was smelly, expensive and inconvenient then, it is even more so now I have a EV that's fully charged every morning when it doesn't even need to be. In 10 years time it'll be nostalgia like a fax machine or sending a telegram.

tigerlily 5y ago
> I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks. You should introduce that certain segment to the Briggs & Stratton stock price :)
- zcw100 5y ago
  I keep saying that EVs are more like a laptop with wheels than a car with a computer.
natmaka 5y ago
> it's been improving regularly for decades in price/performance etc. Indeed: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
- marcodiego 5y ago
  We need graphs like these about power density and charging times/cycles.
- IMTDb 5y ago
  Logarithmic axis warning! We see no "breakthrough", just incremental optimisation (fine in itself). The biggest drop happened between 2000 and 2005, and for the past 15 years the progress have slowed (even after accounting for the logarithmic axis !). The conclusion is that battery technologies are incrementally harder to optimise, that progress is slowing and we shouldn't expect anything major unless an actual breakthrough is made. In other words: if your project isn't viable with the current price point, you may hope for a small discount in few years, but don't expect anything major.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    That's a scale for the current champion, lithium-ion. All it tells us is that lithium ion is a mature technology, not that batteries in general are a mature technology. There's plenty of scenarios where a more expensive alternative could take over easily. A more energy dense alternative that cost 2x as much would be a massive win for vehicles and especially aircraft where weight is a huge penalty. Alternatively, a technology with a much lower price even with a much lower energy density could enable a lot of green energy storage projects that are currently uneconomical with current battery technology.
    - rstuart4133 5y ago
      > That's a scale for the current champion, lithium-ion. They are all currently lithium-ion. What they are varying is the ion. The ion makes a big difference LiFePO4 is very different to LiMn and its mates (higher cycles and lifetime, lower energy density). A LiS is a different ion yet again. It's not a 3 fold improvement in energy density like the article says, more like twice the density in both volume and weight. And like LiFePO4, no rare earth minerals. It's downfall has been durability (50 cycles or so), but there are now multiple teams announcing 1000 cycles or better in the lab, all using different approaches. It seems inevitable that someone will figure out how to manufacture one of those chemistries at scale in time. Then you will see a step change by a change in chemistry. Without a change in chemistry all you see is improvements in manufacturing which is a gradual thing.
lazyier 5y ago
For your purposes EVs are not crap. For lots of purposes EVs ARE crap. For example my neighbor's job involves driving specialized supplies to a number of retail outlets every day. It's a very niche business that involves pickup truck and 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment. The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid. Electic motor technology is fantastic. Battery technology is miserable. And the reason we don't see "breakthroughs" every month, except those that involve press releases and nothing else, is because ideas and chemistry is cheap. It's easy to get patents. What is hard is actually manufacturing. Taking an idea that works theoretically in a lab versus making it work in reality as a commercial product is similar to learning logging down the street the first time versus winning an olympic medal. In terms of technology what we have now is really just a series of incremental improvements over technology released in the 1990's. The rare earth magnets, the computer control of motor phases, the lithium batteries are all stuff designed for portable Japanese consumer electronics. It's just been supersized and refined for EVs.
- taylodl 5y ago
  This is an example of "whatabout-ism." There's going to be a counter-example of someone for which EVs make little sense, but that doesn't mean that EVs make little sense for a large group of drivers or maybe even the majority of cases for which ICE vehicles are currently used. Can EVs 100% replace every single ICE vehicle in every single application? No - and they don't need to in order to be highly useful and provide aggregate benefits.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    I think the most likely mid-tier outcome will be that in about 25 years or so, the grand majority of cars on the road will be EV, but that industrial companies will primarily use ICE vehicles, and for road trips and other such short term, long-distance, time essential driving events ICE vehicles will be typically available for rent.
    - taylodl 5y ago

magicalhippo 5y ago

> Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles. This is what we realized when we got our BMW i3 a few years ago. Sure, cars with longer range will come soon, but we live in the city and very seldom drive more than 100 miles per day. Unless we move, that's not going to change and the i3 is good enough.

hinkley 5y ago
If anything my friends and I are damaging our ICE or hybrid vehicles by taking short trips we have no business taking. Even in cities that have made some progress on walkable neighborhoods, it's often the case that the place you want to be is in the next neighborhood over, which is a worst case scenario for ICE engines. These short trips would be much better in an EV.

incomingpain 5y ago

>I just ordered Kia EV6, friends were laughing: “we get new battery technology in couple years and you car will be soon outdated”. This isn't really the right take. Production at scale isn't happening. Cars won't be the first applications because of huge safety concerns. Much easier to stop a battery fire when it's a cellphone. >I must wait for my car almost a year. Volkswagen group delivers car in almost 2 years when I order today. Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles. Oh ya, it is a matter of time for new battery tech. I believe Tesla will be using a new battery tech in the cyber truck. Then again, where's that at? It's going to be at a premium for sure. Your EV6, ID4, or even BZX4 type vehicles will be the current battery tech for many years. You're going to love your EV6.

chrisco255 5y ago
> Then again, where's that at? I believe they're going to be building the Cybertruck at the new Austin plant. The plant is still under construction but looks pretty far along from the highway. It's kinda cool how they built the factory with large glass windows on the outside so you can see in from the road.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
> Cars won't be the first applications because of huge safety concerns. I expect you're right. When I read "higher energy density" I think "closer to being an actual bomb", ha ha.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >I expect you're right. When I read "higher energy density" I think "closer to being an actual bomb", ha ha. https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Hammond's_Rimac_Crash_(TGT) https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Hammond's_Rimac_Crash_(TGT) That Rimac caught fire and they couldn't stop the fire for days. https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrandtour/comments/7in8bc/comment/dqzzqfh/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrandtour/comments/7in8bc/commen... With higher energy density, for the most part the application will be that we provide a smaller battery for the same range and lower cost. that fire will still be a thing, it's just so much energy. Here's the flipside. Did you know like 1/4 of firemen calls are for gasoline vehicles catching fire? I had a rust bucket that if you braked hard enough gasoline came out of the tank. We are dealing with explosive flammable fluid. EV cars are tremendously safer and even if we invented a battery that only needed recharging twice a year and held immense power. It wouldn't be a bomb. It would just be a crazy fire.

notacoward 5y ago

I just bought a Nissan Leaf+ (love it BTW) and had the same thoughts. I've been following battery technology for at least twenty years. Even invested in a couple of companies. Yes, battery technology continues to improve. Yes, in a few years the range on my new car might seem limited, compared to what's on the market then. But the most important thing is: It's already enough. My nominal range is 215 miles. That's enough to drive around town all week - this car's typical usage pattern - before I have to recharge, and of course I can do that more often if I need to. It's enough to get from here to the ski club we're members of, which we'll probably never even do unless my wife's car breaks down. And that's the key: this is a second car. It doesn't need more range. Maybe in a few more years, if/when battery technology has improved even more, we'll be able to replace my wife's car with one that will get to the club and back without recharging. Maybe when chargers are more ubiquitous, it'll be reasonable to go all the way from eastern Massachusetts to the middle of New York (where my daughter is likely to attend college) in an electric car. Maybe even all the way to Michigan, where I have family. But that's all in the future. In the here-and-now, all of my trips are already emissions free and much cheaper than if I were using gas. Good enough. It's a lot like buying a computer; anything you buy today will be worse than what you could buy in a year, but you can still make better or worse purchases based on technology and price cycles. No reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

lnsru 5y ago
I started my search with Dacia Spring (lol), went to Twingo, then to Leaf/Zoe. Battery degradation of these cars were known and looked good to me. Then I discovered full feature battery powered cars like ID.4 and Enyaq from Volkswagen. ID.4 had too much touchscreen. Enyaq had main screen from some back yard sale in Shenzhen. New car with 4” display. Just wow!!! Then I found Kia e-Niro, did a test drive. Was not big enough. Then did test drive of EV6 with all wheel drive and I really liked it. It will be our single car in the family trading in BMW 3 series. However BMW is a a nicer car with better build quality.

_0ffh 5y ago

>we get new [...] technology in couple years and your [...] will be soon outdated I suppose these guys have never bought and will never buy a computer?

hinkley 5y ago

I have my eye on the EV6 but I'm bummed that the moon roof is only on the most expensive option (practically Tesla prices), and that when these products were announced they were supposed to come with Witricity's wireless charger, which seems to have been abandoned.