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I have an old mini, 135i manual and ride a motorbike, you could say I’m an enthusiast. but I’d take an EV today if it weighed less than 1.5 tonnes, affordable,

I have an old mini, 135i manual and ride a motorbike, you could say I’m an enthusiast. but I’d take an EV today if it weighed less than 1.5 tonnes, affordable, had awd and wasn’t essentially an SUV with no clearance. There’s nothing inherently wrong with electric to my mind, but attaching a heavy and huge battery pack is like building a car with a permanently attached boat trailer. Takes the fun out of things a bit. Touch screens can also go. Hopefully this changes in the next generation or two, I really would like to get away from gas.

fragmede 4y ago
Yes hopefully! as soon as we collectively get over range anxiety and they sell cars with 50 mile range because that's all you really need when you plug it in at night, most of the time. And bring back the Smart FourTwo sub-sub-compact form factor. All of which will serve to bring the price down immensely.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  Calling it "range anxiety" suggests some unwarranted psychological condition that can be fixed with education and thus will go away, as opposed to people's natural desire to not be on a short leash. They don't want to skip work because they wake up in the morning and when they walk into their garage they see that they forgot to plug their car in last night on the way home from the show. And damn, they need to drop their daughter off for her music lesson (and of course pick her up) - they were planning on getting some shopping done during that time, and it's right after work. In other words, people are juggling all sorts of stuff in their heads as they run around doing errands already, and want things to be as stateless as possible. Now gas in the tank isn't stateless, but it takes 5 minutes to fill up, so it's effectively stateless, in that you can squeeze 5 minutes any time you want and there are gas stations everywhere. It doesn't require planning. It's not something you have to think about before you agree to give someone a ride -- you can always just get gas on the way. So you don't need to keep in the back of your head what your car battery situation is when someone asks you to go pick up something or take them somewhere. That's the issue, and short of changing family relationships, it's not going to go away anytime soon. That said, there's certainly a market for fun cars with shorter range -- they used to be called "Weekend cars" -- cars you drive just for fun, but not your daily driver. That would be appropriate for shorter range cars.
  - pornel 4y ago
    Anxiety about range is a real thing. People new to EVs imagine they're going to be stranded, don't know if they can trust remaining range/state of charge indicators (e.g. compare it to their experiences with cell phone batteries), worry they won't be able to find a working charger, are afraid that charging will take hours. With experience (education), these worries go away. You learn how much real-world range your car can actually do, you learn which chargers around you are reliable, you learn what tools you have available for planning routes, you learn how to deal with running low, you learn about charging curves. You are repeating some of the myths that cause this anxiety. For example, most modern EVs have enough battery to last a whole week of city driving. You can forget to plug in, even a couple of nights in a row. DC chargers can add 50 miles of range in 5 minutes, so it's not a big deal even if you're dropping someone off.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    It is some unwarranted psychological condition that can be fixed with education though, because of the unrealistic high standards for EVs that people still hold. If you won't buy an EV because you're scared you'll run out of juice picking your daughter up from her recital, when it's only 10 miles to her practice, and your EV has 250 miles of range on a full charge, that's what makes for "an unwarranted psychological condition". 250 miles (for a Chevy Bolt), or 402 miles (for a Tesla Model S LR) for a full charge isn't at all a short leash, and with quick chargers, it's a 20 minute stop to get a hundred miles of charge. If you're at the point where you're sitting at home, just thinking up scenarios where some hypothetical EV is going to fail you, that's range anxiety. If you're having to keep your battery status in your head, that's range anxiety. If you're avoiding errands and family functions because of you're worried about your battery, that's range anxiety. If you're 100 miles from home and you've got 50 miles of charge left, that's a realistic worry - go to your nearest charger. Range anxiety is a real thing and the faster we can educate people that dropping off a friend on the way home isn't this impossible 200-unplanned-mile detour where there are no chargers scenario (if it is, then your friends need to get their own cars), the better EV adoption is going to go.
Kaibeezy 4y ago
Alas, as utilitarian mass-individual transportation, I suppose there's no doubt EVs make sense. I don't drive much, but when I do, I enjoy having a fully-engaged experience. Soon enough, people won't even be aware driving once required four limbs operating on four different tasks simultaneously, or how that could be pleasurable. Sad for them. More old cars for me.

fragmede 4y ago

Yes hopefully! as soon as we collectively get over range anxiety and they sell cars with 50 mile range because that's all you really need when you plug it in at night, most of the time. And bring back the Smart FourTwo sub-sub-compact form factor. All of which will serve to bring the price down immensely.

rsj_hn 4y ago
Calling it "range anxiety" suggests some unwarranted psychological condition that can be fixed with education and thus will go away, as opposed to people's natural desire to not be on a short leash. They don't want to skip work because they wake up in the morning and when they walk into their garage they see that they forgot to plug their car in last night on the way home from the show. And damn, they need to drop their daughter off for her music lesson (and of course pick her up) - they were planning on getting some shopping done during that time, and it's right after work. In other words, people are juggling all sorts of stuff in their heads as they run around doing errands already, and want things to be as stateless as possible. Now gas in the tank isn't stateless, but it takes 5 minutes to fill up, so it's effectively stateless, in that you can squeeze 5 minutes any time you want and there are gas stations everywhere. It doesn't require planning. It's not something you have to think about before you agree to give someone a ride -- you can always just get gas on the way. So you don't need to keep in the back of your head what your car battery situation is when someone asks you to go pick up something or take them somewhere. That's the issue, and short of changing family relationships, it's not going to go away anytime soon. That said, there's certainly a market for fun cars with shorter range -- they used to be called "Weekend cars" -- cars you drive just for fun, but not your daily driver. That would be appropriate for shorter range cars.
- pornel 4y ago
  Anxiety about range is a real thing. People new to EVs imagine they're going to be stranded, don't know if they can trust remaining range/state of charge indicators (e.g. compare it to their experiences with cell phone batteries), worry they won't be able to find a working charger, are afraid that charging will take hours. With experience (education), these worries go away. You learn how much real-world range your car can actually do, you learn which chargers around you are reliable, you learn what tools you have available for planning routes, you learn how to deal with running low, you learn about charging curves. You are repeating some of the myths that cause this anxiety. For example, most modern EVs have enough battery to last a whole week of city driving. You can forget to plug in, even a couple of nights in a row. DC chargers can add 50 miles of range in 5 minutes, so it's not a big deal even if you're dropping someone off.
- fragmede 4y ago
  It is some unwarranted psychological condition that can be fixed with education though, because of the unrealistic high standards for EVs that people still hold. If you won't buy an EV because you're scared you'll run out of juice picking your daughter up from her recital, when it's only 10 miles to her practice, and your EV has 250 miles of range on a full charge, that's what makes for "an unwarranted psychological condition". 250 miles (for a Chevy Bolt), or 402 miles (for a Tesla Model S LR) for a full charge isn't at all a short leash, and with quick chargers, it's a 20 minute stop to get a hundred miles of charge. If you're at the point where you're sitting at home, just thinking up scenarios where some hypothetical EV is going to fail you, that's range anxiety. If you're having to keep your battery status in your head, that's range anxiety. If you're avoiding errands and family functions because of you're worried about your battery, that's range anxiety. If you're 100 miles from home and you've got 50 miles of charge left, that's a realistic worry - go to your nearest charger. Range anxiety is a real thing and the faster we can educate people that dropping off a friend on the way home isn't this impossible 200-unplanned-mile detour where there are no chargers scenario (if it is, then your friends need to get their own cars), the better EV adoption is going to go.

Kaibeezy 4y ago

Alas, as utilitarian mass-individual transportation, I suppose there's no doubt EVs make sense. I don't drive much, but when I do, I enjoy having a fully-engaged experience. Soon enough, people won't even be aware driving once required four limbs operating on four different tasks simultaneously, or how that could be pleasurable. Sad for them. More old cars for me.