4 ms·

For warm climates in urban areas, I can agree, but here are things never fully covered anywhere: 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a

by jmclnx 4y ago

For warm climates in urban areas, I can agree, but here are things never fully covered anywhere: 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. Granted maybe EV stop power usage in this case. But under very hot or cold weather, you will lose AC and Heat. So if you have health concerns, TFB. 3. Battery recycling and disposal. Once EVs become common, I can see people being charged disposal costs for old batteries. In this case, I can see old batteries being tossed out backyards in rural. Anyone remember piles of tires sitting in people's yards 40+ years ago ? 4. Old EVs may need battery replacement, I can see this being very expensive for poor people To me, better off moving to very good public transportation. Up until say the 1960s, people would travel via buses and trains, even for long distance. Now that is impossible. My Aunt (90+ years old) would take a train from a very rural town to the local small city on weekends for dancing and things like that in her teens/20s. That town no longer has public transportation anywhere even though its population is 30x times the size now. Time to bring that back everywhere. For a somewhat decent system (to not as good as 70 years ago), see NY State Train routes. People still use that to get to NYC from rather long distances.

vmladenov 4y ago
> Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. This is just abjectly wrong. The absolutely best use case for an EV is during gridlock. You can run the heater on a (pre-heat pump) Model 3 for something like 2 days in 15F weather, and people have hypermiled it to 600 miles at 20-30mph. In gridlock you’re not expending any energy to idle the engine, so there’s no “cut” in range besides from the climate system. Far, far better than idling a combustion engine.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  If you're worried about heat turn the cabin heater off and just run the seat heaters. You can run those for a month on half a battery.
throw0101b 4y ago
> 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. Better inform the folks in Norway (75% EV share), Iceland (45%), and Sweden (32%): * https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/electric-vehicles-europe-percentage-sales/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/electric-vehicles-eur... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Nordic_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Nordic_countrie... > 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. As opposed to being stuck in track in an ICE vehicles? > To me, better off moving to very good public transportation. Perfect is the enemy of the good: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good If we're stuck with cars (in the short- or long-term), we might as well try to reduce carbon emissions.
- jmclnx 4y ago
  >Better inform the folks in Norway (75% EV share), Iceland (45%), and Sweden (32%): I was waiting for this, those countries do not get the winter people in Minnesota and Montana get. Far less sever on average. A quick search: Is Minnesota or Norway colder? What is this? FARGO — Oslo, the capital of Norway, is located at 60 degrees north. Fargo and Duluth are closer to 47 degrees north. Winter weather in the Dakotas and Minnesota, however, is much colder than in Oslo. and They are both northern places although Minnesota has a climate that is much more severe than that of most of Sweden, particularly in the winter months although Sweden is much further north. Stockholm is warmer in the wintertime and cooler during the summer months.
  - rektide 4y ago
    Oslo is both sheltered & pretty far south for Norway. Norway only extends to 58 degrees N. It goes north to 71 degrees N. I don't actually known what a better comparison is & I don't know the answers, but I'm kind of unsurprised Oslo is so relatively warm. I haven't found good winter temperature maps but indeed the average temperature maps bear this out well. Interesting data point! I don't know how representative it is, how much it really says, but indeed surprising.
  - 4y ago
oblio 4y ago
> 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. Granted maybe EV stop power usage in this case. But under very hot or cold weather, you will lose AC and Heat. So if you have health concerns, TFB. EV energy usage is linear with speed. The slower you go, the longer the range. This part doesn't make any sense unless you have something specific to share.
- leetcrew 4y ago
  > EV energy usage is linear with speed. drag actually scales worse than linearly with speed (which further supports your point), but this is only considering power consumption from the drivetrain in isolation. other systems (most significantly: climate control) have more static power consumption that is not related to speed. so there is a crossover point where the speed vs efficiency relation inverts, because the static draw is not offset by reduction in drag. I don't know what this would be for real world EVs, but I'd guess it's somewhere in the single-digit mph range.
conk 4y ago
Maintaining the temp inside the car is going to pull at most a couple kw. So 2 hours with the heat or AC on even in a very severe climate is going to consume <5kWh. Which translates to a loss of 15 miles in range. If you got stuck overnight due to snow on a mountain pass maybe that would be an issue. But in that case you have the same issues with an ICE car and all the carbon monoxide that comes along with it. I’d rather be stuck in an EV where I can at least run the seat warmers and climate on a low setting.
the_third_wave 4y ago
> But under very hot or cold weather, you will lose AC and Heat At least the "hot weather" situation could be remedied by adding a solar roof and possibly hood to the vehicle. While it does not really add much in the way of range extension it does provide power to run AC when it is needed. An average car roof is big enough to provide 400W to 600W which goes a long way in offsetting the power consumed by the AC.
- mcculley 4y ago
  As a Floridian who has always consumed a lot of energy trying to keep cool, I am surprised by: "An average car roof is big enough to provide 400W to 600W which goes a long way in offsetting the power consumed by the AC." These numbers don't seem correct to me. What are you using for average surface area for a roof, expected solar collected, and AC consumption?
  - rektide 4y ago
    The Aptera is a huge beast of a car designed specifically for solar, and I believe the current figure is that it can get 700W at a nice solar optimum. Big sweeping hood, roof, and trunk of solar. I doubt many cars can get 400W. I don't think most cars could maintain even 80 degrees on a 100+ day, but that's just a guess.
    - the_third_wave 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_(solar_electric_vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_(solar_electric_vehicle... The Aptera is not "a huge best of a car", it more resembles a seed pod on three wheels. The roof and hood area are quite limited due to this shape which leads to the relatively low solar yield.
      - rektide 4y ago
        Yeah not as bad as I thought. It is Model 3 sized. I'd heard people reviewing it say they were quite surprised just how big it was. And the width is almost 88 inches at the wheel pods which is indeed quite big. But overall really quite ok size. I almost signed up for a pre-order but their site was broken, the car was so wide, and I definitely dont need one (but man it'd be cool). The total % of solar seems quite impressive to me. The elongated teardrop looks of anything to do quite a good job exposing surface for solar. There is some loss of "fill factor" with cells having some space between them rather than being totally dense. I'd love to see a car that had more solar. I have a hard time imagining it.
starbase 4y ago
> Battery recycling and disposal...remember piles of tires sitting in people's yards 40+ years ago? Not going to happen. Old tires have negative value. Old EV batteries are worth over $1000 apiece.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Most of your points have been addressed, but. Vehicle lead acid batteries have a >99% recycling rate. The high rate is mostly due to economic reasons but partly due to regulatory ones. EV batteries will get reused or recycled. As for range in the winter, on our heart pump equipped Model Y we see a 20% range reduction in the winter at -20C. No big deal. On the other hand we're never sure our gasoline vehicle will start without a boost. Much more annoying.
_hypx 4y ago
It should be a huge motivation for hydrogen cars, which are also EVs but without such weaknesses in cold weather. It is very unfortunate that the article just dismisses this idea with just one sentence and zero explanation.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  I'm still waiting for the first independent winter test of any hydrogen car. There are a bunch of "tests" where a car manufacturer has invited journalists to drive cars in the north, but the cars are always pre-warmed by the company. The fuel cell does NOT want to freeze, it can actually physically break if it goes under 0C.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    That has already happened with buses. There is much less range loss compared to battery buses: https://www.sustainable-bus.com/news/the-effect-of-cold-weather-on-electric-bus-range-fuel-cell-wins-a-study-by-cte/ https://www.sustainable-bus.com/news/the-effect-of-cold-weat...
theshrike79 4y ago
> 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. Scandinavia here. I've owned gasoline powered cars, I've owned diesels, I've owned hybrids (Priuses) and cars with additional fuel heaters. My current EV absolutely demolishes every single one of those in the speed of heating up the cabin. It got down to -30C a few winters ago and I had to drop off my kid at school so that their face wouldn't freeze solid (we don't do "snow days" here). I actually timed it, ~2 minutes from a weekend-long -30C weather to 20 degree air blowing into the cabin. The only ones that got close were the fuel heater (8kW heating power, no emissions standards applied btw) and Priuses. Yes, it takes a bunch of electricity to heat up the cabin at first, but the upkeep is a few kWh using the heat pump. Also: My EV has _never_ failed to start in the winter, no matter what the situation. All of the above (except for the Priuses) have failed or given me extra heart palpitations during colder days. > 2. Stuck in traffic. I know people first hand who have _literally_ camped in their EVs multiple times. 5-10C outside, car keeping itself at a comfy 20-22C and the battery drain is negligible. Heat pumps with high COP are fun! Unless you get in a China-style 10 day traffic jam[0], you'll be just fine. Better than people in ICEs. > 3. Battery recycling and disposal. Do you know why we don't have a multi-million battery recycling industry? Because the damn things won't break. Decade-old Teslas and even Leafs with their completely botched thermal management are still mostly (>90%) running on OG batteries. And even if an EV battery is too degraded to be practical in a car, a 100kW battery that's degraded to 50% capacity is still a 50kW battery. That's enough to run a _house_ for a few days or a small cabin for weeks. Remember the Three R's of recycling: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Very few batteries will get to the last R where they are actually broken down to their base metals. > 4. Old EVs may need battery replacement Old cars tend to need expensive repairs, the difference is that an EV has less moving parts to break. The only big thing is the battery, but that tech is moving too fast to make any kinds of predictions. It's possible _today_ to get an old Leaf battery swapped for one with 50% more capacity than the old one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_traffic_jam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_tra...

by jmclnx 4y ago

vmladenov 4y ago

> Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. This is just abjectly wrong. The absolutely best use case for an EV is during gridlock. You can run the heater on a (pre-heat pump) Model 3 for something like 2 days in 15F weather, and people have hypermiled it to 600 miles at 20-30mph. In gridlock you’re not expending any energy to idle the engine, so there’s no “cut” in range besides from the climate system. Far, far better than idling a combustion engine.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
If you're worried about heat turn the cabin heater off and just run the seat heaters. You can run those for a month on half a battery.

throw0101b 4y ago

> 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. Better inform the folks in Norway (75% EV share), Iceland (45%), and Sweden (32%): * https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/electric-vehicles-europe-percentage-sales/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/electric-vehicles-eur... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Nordic_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Nordic_countrie... > 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. As opposed to being stuck in track in an ICE vehicles? > To me, better off moving to very good public transportation. Perfect is the enemy of the good: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good If we're stuck with cars (in the short- or long-term), we might as well try to reduce carbon emissions.

jmclnx 4y ago
>Better inform the folks in Norway (75% EV share), Iceland (45%), and Sweden (32%): I was waiting for this, those countries do not get the winter people in Minnesota and Montana get. Far less sever on average. A quick search: Is Minnesota or Norway colder? What is this? FARGO — Oslo, the capital of Norway, is located at 60 degrees north. Fargo and Duluth are closer to 47 degrees north. Winter weather in the Dakotas and Minnesota, however, is much colder than in Oslo. and They are both northern places although Minnesota has a climate that is much more severe than that of most of Sweden, particularly in the winter months although Sweden is much further north. Stockholm is warmer in the wintertime and cooler during the summer months.
- rektide 4y ago
  Oslo is both sheltered & pretty far south for Norway. Norway only extends to 58 degrees N. It goes north to 71 degrees N. I don't actually known what a better comparison is & I don't know the answers, but I'm kind of unsurprised Oslo is so relatively warm. I haven't found good winter temperature maps but indeed the average temperature maps bear this out well. Interesting data point! I don't know how representative it is, how much it really says, but indeed surprising.
- 4y ago

oblio 4y ago

> 2. Stuck in traffic. If you are stuck in grid lock, that will cut in range, there have been cases were gridlock could last hours. Granted maybe EV stop power usage in this case. But under very hot or cold weather, you will lose AC and Heat. So if you have health concerns, TFB. EV energy usage is linear with speed. The slower you go, the longer the range. This part doesn't make any sense unless you have something specific to share.

leetcrew 4y ago
> EV energy usage is linear with speed. drag actually scales worse than linearly with speed (which further supports your point), but this is only considering power consumption from the drivetrain in isolation. other systems (most significantly: climate control) have more static power consumption that is not related to speed. so there is a crossover point where the speed vs efficiency relation inverts, because the static draw is not offset by reduction in drag. I don't know what this would be for real world EVs, but I'd guess it's somewhere in the single-digit mph range.

conk 4y ago

Maintaining the temp inside the car is going to pull at most a couple kw. So 2 hours with the heat or AC on even in a very severe climate is going to consume <5kWh. Which translates to a loss of 15 miles in range. If you got stuck overnight due to snow on a mountain pass maybe that would be an issue. But in that case you have the same issues with an ICE car and all the carbon monoxide that comes along with it. I’d rather be stuck in an EV where I can at least run the seat warmers and climate on a low setting.

the_third_wave 4y ago

> But under very hot or cold weather, you will lose AC and Heat At least the "hot weather" situation could be remedied by adding a solar roof and possibly hood to the vehicle. While it does not really add much in the way of range extension it does provide power to run AC when it is needed. An average car roof is big enough to provide 400W to 600W which goes a long way in offsetting the power consumed by the AC.

mcculley 4y ago
As a Floridian who has always consumed a lot of energy trying to keep cool, I am surprised by: "An average car roof is big enough to provide 400W to 600W which goes a long way in offsetting the power consumed by the AC." These numbers don't seem correct to me. What are you using for average surface area for a roof, expected solar collected, and AC consumption?
- rektide 4y ago
  The Aptera is a huge beast of a car designed specifically for solar, and I believe the current figure is that it can get 700W at a nice solar optimum. Big sweeping hood, roof, and trunk of solar. I doubt many cars can get 400W. I don't think most cars could maintain even 80 degrees on a 100+ day, but that's just a guess.
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_(solar_electric_vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_(solar_electric_vehicle... The Aptera is not "a huge best of a car", it more resembles a seed pod on three wheels. The roof and hood area are quite limited due to this shape which leads to the relatively low solar yield.
    - rektide 4y ago
      Yeah not as bad as I thought. It is Model 3 sized. I'd heard people reviewing it say they were quite surprised just how big it was. And the width is almost 88 inches at the wheel pods which is indeed quite big. But overall really quite ok size. I almost signed up for a pre-order but their site was broken, the car was so wide, and I definitely dont need one (but man it'd be cool). The total % of solar seems quite impressive to me. The elongated teardrop looks of anything to do quite a good job exposing surface for solar. There is some loss of "fill factor" with cells having some space between them rather than being totally dense. I'd love to see a car that had more solar. I have a hard time imagining it.

starbase 4y ago

> Battery recycling and disposal...remember piles of tires sitting in people's yards 40+ years ago? Not going to happen. Old tires have negative value. Old EV batteries are worth over $1000 apiece.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

Most of your points have been addressed, but. Vehicle lead acid batteries have a >99% recycling rate. The high rate is mostly due to economic reasons but partly due to regulatory ones. EV batteries will get reused or recycled. As for range in the winter, on our heart pump equipped Model Y we see a 20% range reduction in the winter at -20C. No big deal. On the other hand we're never sure our gasoline vehicle will start without a boost. Much more annoying.

_hypx 4y ago

It should be a huge motivation for hydrogen cars, which are also EVs but without such weaknesses in cold weather. It is very unfortunate that the article just dismisses this idea with just one sentence and zero explanation.

theshrike79 4y ago
I'm still waiting for the first independent winter test of any hydrogen car. There are a bunch of "tests" where a car manufacturer has invited journalists to drive cars in the north, but the cars are always pre-warmed by the company. The fuel cell does NOT want to freeze, it can actually physically break if it goes under 0C.
- _hypx 4y ago
  That has already happened with buses. There is much less range loss compared to battery buses: https://www.sustainable-bus.com/news/the-effect-of-cold-weather-on-electric-bus-range-fuel-cell-wins-a-study-by-cte/ https://www.sustainable-bus.com/news/the-effect-of-cold-weat...

theshrike79 4y ago

> 1. Heat in the winter, this will reduce you range, some just a little, but in places like Minnesota in Feb, a lot. Scandinavia here. I've owned gasoline powered cars, I've owned diesels, I've owned hybrids (Priuses) and cars with additional fuel heaters. My current EV absolutely demolishes every single one of those in the speed of heating up the cabin. It got down to -30C a few winters ago and I had to drop off my kid at school so that their face wouldn't freeze solid (we don't do "snow days" here). I actually timed it, ~2 minutes from a weekend-long -30C weather to 20 degree air blowing into the cabin. The only ones that got close were the fuel heater (8kW heating power, no emissions standards applied btw) and Priuses. Yes, it takes a bunch of electricity to heat up the cabin at first, but the upkeep is a few kWh using the heat pump. Also: My EV has _never_ failed to start in the winter, no matter what the situation. All of the above (except for the Priuses) have failed or given me extra heart palpitations during colder days. > 2. Stuck in traffic. I know people first hand who have _literally_ camped in their EVs multiple times. 5-10C outside, car keeping itself at a comfy 20-22C and the battery drain is negligible. Heat pumps with high COP are fun! Unless you get in a China-style 10 day traffic jam[0], you'll be just fine. Better than people in ICEs. > 3. Battery recycling and disposal. Do you know why we don't have a multi-million battery recycling industry? Because the damn things won't break. Decade-old Teslas and even Leafs with their completely botched thermal management are still mostly (>90%) running on OG batteries. And even if an EV battery is too degraded to be practical in a car, a 100kW battery that's degraded to 50% capacity is still a 50kW battery. That's enough to run a _house_ for a few days or a small cabin for weeks. Remember the Three R's of recycling: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Very few batteries will get to the last R where they are actually broken down to their base metals. > 4. Old EVs may need battery replacement Old cars tend to need expensive repairs, the difference is that an EV has less moving parts to break. The only big thing is the battery, but that tech is moving too fast to make any kinds of predictions. It's possible _today_ to get an old Leaf battery swapped for one with 50% more capacity than the old one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_traffic_jam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_tra...