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I have often felt that Tesla cars were vastly over powered in terms of engine power, battery capacity and acceleration.An engine power large enough to reach 65

I have often felt that Tesla cars were vastly over powered in terms of engine power, battery capacity and acceleration.An engine power large enough to reach 65 Mph in 9 seconds is enough to allow a far smaller/cheaper engine. People vary = offer several engine options as gas cars do. Batteries = main cost. Why not offer 3 sizes of battery. 120/240/360 miles. This would yield a range of 'skates' = 9 On top of this could be 5-6 bodies. Sports car/SUV/Pickup/panel van/small car/larger car. A number of electric car makers offer powered skates. So someone could get a small local 120 mile lower power pickup truck etc etc. As batteries advanced the mile increments could ramp up. China is full of small ecars.

audunw 4y ago
Skoda Enyaq offers different battery sizes in Europe. But the smaller batteries have abysmal charging rate for some reason. Smaller batteries means more charge/discharge cycles, which means faster degradation, which will be a bigger downside when the car is old when you start out with a small battery. There might be an argument that cars should sell with a large battery when the car is new, and if you don't need such a big battery you can by a second hand car with some degradation. I would've picked a smaller battery for our Ioniq 5 if we could. But I must admit it gives peace of mind to know that there's plenty of range for anything we want to do, and that it's likely that we can keep the car as long as we want without worrying about battery degradation being a problem. One of the first things we did with it was a road trip in Denmark, and we didn't have to stop to charge once (only overnight charging). On one leg of the trip we were down to 7% when we arrived, so we had just barely enough. Btw, I love the concept in the article. But with 2 kids a small car isn't viable for us unless we have a good car sharing or rental service in the neighborhood. But even if we did, most likely availability would be extremely limited and expensive during school vacation. Before we had kids I tended to take the bus/train to work, and I've started taking the bike more. E-bikes is great for getting to work in the summer.
theshrike79 4y ago
The "problem" with electric engines is that power is just a byproduct of an efficient engine. For an ICE to go from 10 second 0-100 to 4 seconds is a huge engineering achievement with thousands of moving parts machined to sub-millimeter tolerances. For EVs it's just a matter of putting in more power in it. Some Japanese (and Korean?) brands have intentionally nerfed their EVs acceleration so that people moving from ICEs don't get flustered. The Hyundai Kona EV for example is a complete beast from 0-40km/h, it'll win every single sub 100k€ car off the line in traffic lights. It's not a sports car, it just has electric engines with enough instant torque. I heard of an anecdote about an older woman with her knitting buddies accidentally smoking a BMW when the traffic lights turned green. She just floored it and the car went. Of course the BWM went past them with huge amounts of noise and excessive speed a few seconds later.
tuatoru 4y ago
Teslas were deliberately made overpowered to get market traction. They had to be better than ICE cars at something, and the easiest thing was acceleration. Now that EVs are not dismissed out of hand by nearly everybody, but instead seen as legitimate possibilities, there is room to make more ... sedate ... vehicles.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
I disagree completely. Reaching 65mph in 30 seconds is "enough for anybody", but when you make a car, you have to make something that people want to buy, not something that is "enough". There are cheaper low performance electric cars out there. Before Tesla, battery cars had the image of being low performing city cars that humorless greenies drove around San Francisco. Telsa IMO was very smart to come out right off the bat with extremely high performance and decent range cars at a (low end) "luxury" position, and worked hard on their charging side. It really gave the brand huge cred and wiped out a lot of "BEV" doubts, and differentiated themselves from other electric cars. And it's far easier to start selling cheaper cars from that position than it is to start selling expensive cars with a brand known to be cheap.

audunw 4y ago

Skoda Enyaq offers different battery sizes in Europe. But the smaller batteries have abysmal charging rate for some reason. Smaller batteries means more charge/discharge cycles, which means faster degradation, which will be a bigger downside when the car is old when you start out with a small battery. There might be an argument that cars should sell with a large battery when the car is new, and if you don't need such a big battery you can by a second hand car with some degradation. I would've picked a smaller battery for our Ioniq 5 if we could. But I must admit it gives peace of mind to know that there's plenty of range for anything we want to do, and that it's likely that we can keep the car as long as we want without worrying about battery degradation being a problem. One of the first things we did with it was a road trip in Denmark, and we didn't have to stop to charge once (only overnight charging). On one leg of the trip we were down to 7% when we arrived, so we had just barely enough. Btw, I love the concept in the article. But with 2 kids a small car isn't viable for us unless we have a good car sharing or rental service in the neighborhood. But even if we did, most likely availability would be extremely limited and expensive during school vacation. Before we had kids I tended to take the bus/train to work, and I've started taking the bike more. E-bikes is great for getting to work in the summer.

theshrike79 4y ago

The "problem" with electric engines is that power is just a byproduct of an efficient engine. For an ICE to go from 10 second 0-100 to 4 seconds is a huge engineering achievement with thousands of moving parts machined to sub-millimeter tolerances. For EVs it's just a matter of putting in more power in it. Some Japanese (and Korean?) brands have intentionally nerfed their EVs acceleration so that people moving from ICEs don't get flustered. The Hyundai Kona EV for example is a complete beast from 0-40km/h, it'll win every single sub 100k€ car off the line in traffic lights. It's not a sports car, it just has electric engines with enough instant torque. I heard of an anecdote about an older woman with her knitting buddies accidentally smoking a BMW when the traffic lights turned green. She just floored it and the car went. Of course the BWM went past them with huge amounts of noise and excessive speed a few seconds later.

tuatoru 4y ago

Teslas were deliberately made overpowered to get market traction. They had to be better than ICE cars at something, and the easiest thing was acceleration. Now that EVs are not dismissed out of hand by nearly everybody, but instead seen as legitimate possibilities, there is room to make more ... sedate ... vehicles.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

I disagree completely. Reaching 65mph in 30 seconds is "enough for anybody", but when you make a car, you have to make something that people want to buy, not something that is "enough". There are cheaper low performance electric cars out there. Before Tesla, battery cars had the image of being low performing city cars that humorless greenies drove around San Francisco. Telsa IMO was very smart to come out right off the bat with extremely high performance and decent range cars at a (low end) "luxury" position, and worked hard on their charging side. It really gave the brand huge cred and wiped out a lot of "BEV" doubts, and differentiated themselves from other electric cars. And it's far easier to start selling cheaper cars from that position than it is to start selling expensive cars with a brand known to be cheap.