9 ms·

Ultralong-Range Electric Cars Are Arriving. Say Goodbye to Charging Stops

23 points by lxm 3y ago

joebiden2 3y ago
[flagged]
- eternityforest 3y ago
  As far as I'm concerned, everything that's out now is just early adopter tech demo stuff. Eventually the batteries will have more energy and no lithium, and by then the charging stations will be everywhere, and then EVs will probably quickly take over. Business people like things they can directly observe with steady progress and milestones, so I doubt they'd go for "Hey let's build charging stations nobody will use for 20 years, then switch to EVs all at once as soon as the tech is actually ready". I wonder how things would be different if commerical projects were more waterfall-y and less gradual?
  - _hypx 3y ago
    The “battery” of the future will be something akin to hydrogen fuel cells. You eliminate all significant raw material requirements while still having an EV. The problem is that it is highly disruptive to the current trend of BEVs with giant batteries.
    - bink 3y ago
      Where would the hydrogen come from?
      - _hypx 3y ago
        Water electrolysis deployed on a vast scale.
    - anon84873628 3y ago
      Why do we even need electric motors? For the last hundred years we could have been running ICEs on ethanol produced from organic waste...
      - eternityforest 3y ago
        It's still not ideal because there's more than just Co2 coming from exhaust, but even if that was solved, is there actually enough waste to meet current demand? Some low effort googling shows there's over 100bn gallons of gas a year used in the US, 320 million tons of crop waste, and it takes 26lbs of corn to make 1 gallon of ethanol. Actually collecting and converting all the waste doesn't seem like an easy task or we'd presumably be doing it already, maybe it's cheaper to do EVs?
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  So wait. We should wait until the energy grid is 100% clean before we deploy EVs? Until then, we should continue to drive ICEVs, because they cause less pollution? Genius.
Turskarama 3y ago
What I actually _want_ is a range extended EV: that is 1. Capable of driving ~100km on a charge, with a fully electric drive train 2. A small (~20hp) internal combustion engine + generator able to charge the batteries while driving. This would allow me to do 95%+ of my trips in full EV mode while keeping the battery quite small, and when I want to go long distance I still can. Most plug in hybrids are designed with the internal combustion engine as an integral part of the drivetrain which isn't really what I'm after as it means even if you only use the car for short trips you will still sometimes start the engine. EDIT: I should add to this, the Volt is definitely the closest to what I'm after but it's not available in my country (Australia) and probably never will be.
- teruakohatu 3y ago
  The good news is that this type of car has been around since at least 1900 with the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus [1] which had a version with a motor to top up the battery. The bad news is that they haven't been that popular. You might be able to find a used BMW i3 REx in Australia, but it was discontinued in 2019. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner%E2%80%93Porsche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner%E2%80%93Porsche
- theluketaylor 3y ago
  BMW i3 REx is pretty much exactly as described. It has a 38 hp twin cylinder motorcycle engine which is more than your ideal 20, but even that is known to slowly lose charge while climbing long hills since the engine can't output much power. The engine is not mechanically connected to the wheels. Interesting oddity of incentives. California's zero emission vehicle rules state that range extended EVs count for more zero emission credit, but to qualify as range extended the gas range can't exceed the battery range. Since i3 had a pretty small battery and BMW didn't want to go to the expense of building a different, smaller tank for the US they shipped the i3 with a software locked portion of the gas tank. You can flash the firmware to unlock the full gas tank (which is still pretty small). i3 wasn't a huge success. BMW made a bet battery prices would stay extremely high and weight would really matter in an EV. i3 and i8 were experiments to see if they could build cars from carbon fibre re-enforced plastic at scale economically. Spoiler alert: they couldn't. That meant i3 was shockingly expensive to buy and even minor collisions can write the entire car off since even hairline cracks in the CFRP shell can result in catastrophic failure. Unfortunately for you I don't see any new vehicles being designed to fill that niche. Designing a ground up PHEV is far too expensive, so every manufacturer is just electrifying their existing gas designs and stuffing batteries anywhere they can find a spare bit of space. Since engines give off waste heat for free no one is going to bother making a full heating system just for the plug in version since it would drive the sticker price up on a plug-in even higher (and they are already a tough sell since they get up into full EV range). Combined with the charging network getting better very rapidly and PHEVs are a bit of an investment dead end. They will continue to exist (especially in the EU market), but everyone is putting the absolute barest possible engineering effort into them.
vajrabum 3y ago
https://archive.is/sQArY https://archive.is/sQArY
fnordpiglet 3y ago
The new CATL Qilin batteries are already producing cars at 140kwh delivering now, capable of 1000km or 621 miles [2]. A Tesla model S long range has 100kwh. This is with a Qilin battery at a density of 255 Wh/kg, but the expected density is 500Wh/kg [1] as they ramp up production and efficiency. This means we should expect around 1000 miles per charge over the next few years. There are other battery technologies on the 5 year horizon that bring another doubling. I would expect this translates into a few things: lighter cheaper cars with less batteries, cars that can travel long distances with faster charges (due to the battery being more depleted and not being charged fully on each charge), and long range trucks - and at the current thresholds electric aviation is practical and economical. Now we just need to create more electric potential!! 1 https://electriccarsreport.com/2023/05/zeekr-starts-delivery-of-zeekr-001-with-catl-qilin-battery/ https://electriccarsreport.com/2023/05/zeekr-starts-delivery... 2 https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html
- tuatoru 3y ago
  > There are other battery technologies on the 5 year horizon that bring another doubling. I'm curious about these. Are you referring to silicon anodes, or metallic lithium anodes and solid ceramic electrolytes and "improved separators"? (I can't find much about the improvements.) Or other improvements, say in cathodes, or cell design (say reducing the mass of anode and cathode contacts), packaging or pack design? I thought LG's wireless within-pack BMS comms was a clever way to reduce volume, weight, and copper requirements. There are lots of incremental improvements possible, but getting from 500 to 1000 Wh/kg is a big ask. > Now we just need to create more electric potential!! The less-solved problem is essentially political: building more transmission grid. That involves landowners...
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    No more in the ways of chemistry, specifically solid state and lithium air.
resolutebat 3y ago
Currently reasonable driving distances are limited largely by human endurance: you can only drive so far in a single day without needing bathroom breaks, food and eventually sleep, which is when the author of the story recharges their car. If/when fully self-driving cars ever become practical, there's really nothing stopping the car from driving forever, and that's when fast chargers will again become essential.
- cloverich 3y ago
  Hey now I've driven 16 hours once (Tennessee to texas). My partner was not happy.
- civilitty 3y ago
  That's why truckers invented piss jugs.
throwoutway 3y ago
[flagged]
sylware 3y ago
Isn't those batteries the unfamous silicon anode batteries going into mass production? (rumors said they did work around the "significant size increase" issue at mass production scale).
LeafItAlone 3y ago
Limited range has been one of the biggest factors keeping EVs out of my hands. I regularly have to drive a ~400 mile route. Usually a few times a month. In my 9 year old compact SUV, I am able to do that trip with ~1/4 of a tank left, even when it's packed full. I generally do it without stops. I look forward to the day that EVs can get similar ranges to ICE vehicles. (And more so, truly self-driving cars, so I can do something better during that time! Unfortunately it's a route without any real public transportation and I often have a load.)
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Very few people can drive 400 miles without stopping to go to the bathroom. A 10 minute bathroom break can add enough charge to let a 300 mile EV go 400 miles.
  - upon_drumhead 3y ago
    I don't understand your figures. Are you saying that it takes 10 minutes to fill up 1/3rd of a battery charge?
    - resolutebat 3y ago
      Yes, a 350 kWH fast charger can add enough juice for over 350 km (~220 miles) in 10 minutes. https://tritiumcharging.com/product/pk-350/ https://tritiumcharging.com/product/pk-350/
  - jandrewrogers 3y ago
    400 miles is only 5-6 hours (or less) of driving. I’ve done these long-haul routes many, many times with quite a varied set of passengers and there was almost never a bathroom break required. People use the bathroom when we stop for fuel.
- gleenn 3y ago
  I was only a little concerned buying a Tesla Model Y with "300" mile range. I travel between Los Angel And San Diego frequently and there are a good number of charging stations to be sure. But even though the car tells you to keep between 20% and 80% charge, almost cutting the effective mileage in half, the extra stops just aren't that bad. What's true of lithium ion batteries is that the emptier the battery, the significantly faster the charging rate. So I can skip the stop on my route, but usually I just pull over when the percentage gets pretty low for maybe 20 to 30 minutes, and if I start pretty low, I'll easily get 30-40 percent charge increase. It's really not that painful, and at least in California, they put the charging locations near restaurants and coffee shops and malls so I can take a little break on those long trips. Sure, a car with 1000+ mile range sounds great. But driving a car that heavy with batteries sounds unnecessary and nearly all people are making far shorter trips to e.g. the grocery store 10 miles away and the little dinky trickle charger I use at home is more than adequate, I almost never have to do what ICE cars do on a regular basis, stopping at all the dirty gas stations, my car is usually more than charged over night.
atbpaca 3y ago
I ask this genuinely, how polluting is it to build a battery (mining, etc)? Is it worth it? How that compares with hydrogen produced by renewable and/or nuclear?
- tuatoru 3y ago
  There are a lot of assumptions that people would have to make in answering that question. What is the assumed life of the battery vs the hydrogen electrolyzer and storage/distribution network? What are the maintenance requirements over that life? Are you assuming best-practice mine management or worst practice? What fraction of each battery can be recycled, and what fraction of batteries will in fact be recycled? How much leakage of hydrogen will there be and how many fires will happen, with the pollution that attends them? And so on and on. The simple answer is that both of them are way less bad than what we have now (fossil fuels), and commercially the world has chosen batteries.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  A lot less than it is to burn lots of fuel. Basically manufacturing related emissions and damage is basically offset within the first year or so of driving a EV. After that first year they are basically cleaner than an ICE vehicle on every dimension that matters. And that's just current state of the art. Hydrogen for road transport simply makes no economical sense. It's been tried and it failed hard in the market. Even Toyota, who have been trying to convince world+dog that hydrogen was the future has failed to convince people to buy their hydrogen cars to the point that they are already making vastly more EVs than they've ever produced hydrogen cars. And that's them dragging their heels and barely trying to produce EVs. Hydrogen fueling infrastructure is a big obstacle. It's not happening. The handful of fueling stations that actually exist are barely being used and some are actually being shut down. If you are at all range anxious, hydrogen would be your nightmare fuel. Most of the world is well out of range from any hydrogen fuel station. You can't go anywhere if you have a hydrogen car. EVs on the other hand can go anywhere there are wall sockets.
am44jnsf 3y ago
surely the future of caravans/campers is the have onboard batteries that feed the towing car. I drive 1000km so rarely I'd be happy to tow a small trailer that's simply an extended range battery that you can hire for the journey.
bitwize 3y ago
Or, as I like to call them, "Rolling Inextinguishable Firebombs".
- wilg 3y ago
  big if true (not true)
mc32 3y ago
If they can get enough energy density, we can start to begin thinking about distance/weight trade-offs. Currently electrics exceed the mass of ICE vehicles and that means more tire wear and road wear, plus more damage in accidents to less massive cars and vehicles.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Nope; provably false. Most ICE SUVs are about as big and heavy as their electrical equivalents. Electrifying existing ICE vehicles, which is a popular thing to do with many classical cars, typically barely increases their weight while vastly enhancing their performance and torque.
  - mc32 3y ago
    Sorry: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1137033_will-the-extra-weight-of-evs-vs-ice-vehicles-worsen-road-safety https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1137033_will-the-extra-... https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/americas-new-weight-problem-electric-cars/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/americas-new-weight-probl...
snapplebobapple 3y ago
Am I the only one who only cares a little bit about range beyond 300kms and doesn't care about range at all beyond ~600 kms? My biggest problem with electric is there is a 15-20k price premium in my market right now over equivalent gas vehicles and I tend to buy vehicles and drive them into the ground over 15-20 years so if I buy electric I am 100% getting stuck with a fairly expensive battery replacement way before I usually get hit with an engine or transmission or other large problem in a gas vehicle, so life expectancy is way lower for my lower yearly kms spread over a long time period use case. When are the sodium ion batteries (or some other tech) that is both dramatically cheaper and likely durable enough to take battery replacement off the table as a risk for 15+ years of the vehicle's life?
voidmain0001 3y ago
I live in Canada and ordered a Toyota Sienna hybrid Oct-2022 and its estimated delivery date is spring 2025. If battery advancements are coming quick then by the time it arrives the Sienna’s batteries will be low-tech bricks.

23 points by lxm 3y ago

joebiden2 3y ago

[flagged]

eternityforest 3y ago
As far as I'm concerned, everything that's out now is just early adopter tech demo stuff. Eventually the batteries will have more energy and no lithium, and by then the charging stations will be everywhere, and then EVs will probably quickly take over. Business people like things they can directly observe with steady progress and milestones, so I doubt they'd go for "Hey let's build charging stations nobody will use for 20 years, then switch to EVs all at once as soon as the tech is actually ready". I wonder how things would be different if commerical projects were more waterfall-y and less gradual?
- _hypx 3y ago
  The “battery” of the future will be something akin to hydrogen fuel cells. You eliminate all significant raw material requirements while still having an EV. The problem is that it is highly disruptive to the current trend of BEVs with giant batteries.
  - bink 3y ago
    Where would the hydrogen come from?
    - _hypx 3y ago
      Water electrolysis deployed on a vast scale.
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    Why do we even need electric motors? For the last hundred years we could have been running ICEs on ethanol produced from organic waste...
    - eternityforest 3y ago
      It's still not ideal because there's more than just Co2 coming from exhaust, but even if that was solved, is there actually enough waste to meet current demand? Some low effort googling shows there's over 100bn gallons of gas a year used in the US, 320 million tons of crop waste, and it takes 26lbs of corn to make 1 gallon of ethanol. Actually collecting and converting all the waste doesn't seem like an easy task or we'd presumably be doing it already, maybe it's cheaper to do EVs?
doctor_eval 3y ago
So wait. We should wait until the energy grid is 100% clean before we deploy EVs? Until then, we should continue to drive ICEVs, because they cause less pollution? Genius.

Turskarama 3y ago

What I actually _want_ is a range extended EV: that is 1. Capable of driving ~100km on a charge, with a fully electric drive train 2. A small (~20hp) internal combustion engine + generator able to charge the batteries while driving. This would allow me to do 95%+ of my trips in full EV mode while keeping the battery quite small, and when I want to go long distance I still can. Most plug in hybrids are designed with the internal combustion engine as an integral part of the drivetrain which isn't really what I'm after as it means even if you only use the car for short trips you will still sometimes start the engine. EDIT: I should add to this, the Volt is definitely the closest to what I'm after but it's not available in my country (Australia) and probably never will be.

teruakohatu 3y ago
The good news is that this type of car has been around since at least 1900 with the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus [1] which had a version with a motor to top up the battery. The bad news is that they haven't been that popular. You might be able to find a used BMW i3 REx in Australia, but it was discontinued in 2019. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner%E2%80%93Porsche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner%E2%80%93Porsche
theluketaylor 3y ago
BMW i3 REx is pretty much exactly as described. It has a 38 hp twin cylinder motorcycle engine which is more than your ideal 20, but even that is known to slowly lose charge while climbing long hills since the engine can't output much power. The engine is not mechanically connected to the wheels. Interesting oddity of incentives. California's zero emission vehicle rules state that range extended EVs count for more zero emission credit, but to qualify as range extended the gas range can't exceed the battery range. Since i3 had a pretty small battery and BMW didn't want to go to the expense of building a different, smaller tank for the US they shipped the i3 with a software locked portion of the gas tank. You can flash the firmware to unlock the full gas tank (which is still pretty small). i3 wasn't a huge success. BMW made a bet battery prices would stay extremely high and weight would really matter in an EV. i3 and i8 were experiments to see if they could build cars from carbon fibre re-enforced plastic at scale economically. Spoiler alert: they couldn't. That meant i3 was shockingly expensive to buy and even minor collisions can write the entire car off since even hairline cracks in the CFRP shell can result in catastrophic failure. Unfortunately for you I don't see any new vehicles being designed to fill that niche. Designing a ground up PHEV is far too expensive, so every manufacturer is just electrifying their existing gas designs and stuffing batteries anywhere they can find a spare bit of space. Since engines give off waste heat for free no one is going to bother making a full heating system just for the plug in version since it would drive the sticker price up on a plug-in even higher (and they are already a tough sell since they get up into full EV range). Combined with the charging network getting better very rapidly and PHEVs are a bit of an investment dead end. They will continue to exist (especially in the EU market), but everyone is putting the absolute barest possible engineering effort into them.

vajrabum 3y ago

https://archive.is/sQArY https://archive.is/sQArY

fnordpiglet 3y ago

The new CATL Qilin batteries are already producing cars at 140kwh delivering now, capable of 1000km or 621 miles [2]. A Tesla model S long range has 100kwh. This is with a Qilin battery at a density of 255 Wh/kg, but the expected density is 500Wh/kg [1] as they ramp up production and efficiency. This means we should expect around 1000 miles per charge over the next few years. There are other battery technologies on the 5 year horizon that bring another doubling. I would expect this translates into a few things: lighter cheaper cars with less batteries, cars that can travel long distances with faster charges (due to the battery being more depleted and not being charged fully on each charge), and long range trucks - and at the current thresholds electric aviation is practical and economical. Now we just need to create more electric potential!! 1 https://electriccarsreport.com/2023/05/zeekr-starts-delivery-of-zeekr-001-with-catl-qilin-battery/ https://electriccarsreport.com/2023/05/zeekr-starts-delivery... 2 https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html

tuatoru 3y ago
> There are other battery technologies on the 5 year horizon that bring another doubling. I'm curious about these. Are you referring to silicon anodes, or metallic lithium anodes and solid ceramic electrolytes and "improved separators"? (I can't find much about the improvements.) Or other improvements, say in cathodes, or cell design (say reducing the mass of anode and cathode contacts), packaging or pack design? I thought LG's wireless within-pack BMS comms was a clever way to reduce volume, weight, and copper requirements. There are lots of incremental improvements possible, but getting from 500 to 1000 Wh/kg is a big ask. > Now we just need to create more electric potential!! The less-solved problem is essentially political: building more transmission grid. That involves landowners...
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  No more in the ways of chemistry, specifically solid state and lithium air.

resolutebat 3y ago

Currently reasonable driving distances are limited largely by human endurance: you can only drive so far in a single day without needing bathroom breaks, food and eventually sleep, which is when the author of the story recharges their car. If/when fully self-driving cars ever become practical, there's really nothing stopping the car from driving forever, and that's when fast chargers will again become essential.

cloverich 3y ago
Hey now I've driven 16 hours once (Tennessee to texas). My partner was not happy.
civilitty 3y ago
That's why truckers invented piss jugs.

throwoutway 3y ago

[flagged]

sylware 3y ago

Isn't those batteries the unfamous silicon anode batteries going into mass production? (rumors said they did work around the "significant size increase" issue at mass production scale).

LeafItAlone 3y ago

Limited range has been one of the biggest factors keeping EVs out of my hands. I regularly have to drive a ~400 mile route. Usually a few times a month. In my 9 year old compact SUV, I am able to do that trip with ~1/4 of a tank left, even when it's packed full. I generally do it without stops. I look forward to the day that EVs can get similar ranges to ICE vehicles. (And more so, truly self-driving cars, so I can do something better during that time! Unfortunately it's a route without any real public transportation and I often have a load.)

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Very few people can drive 400 miles without stopping to go to the bathroom. A 10 minute bathroom break can add enough charge to let a 300 mile EV go 400 miles.
- upon_drumhead 3y ago
  I don't understand your figures. Are you saying that it takes 10 minutes to fill up 1/3rd of a battery charge?
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    Yes, a 350 kWH fast charger can add enough juice for over 350 km (~220 miles) in 10 minutes. https://tritiumcharging.com/product/pk-350/ https://tritiumcharging.com/product/pk-350/
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  400 miles is only 5-6 hours (or less) of driving. I’ve done these long-haul routes many, many times with quite a varied set of passengers and there was almost never a bathroom break required. People use the bathroom when we stop for fuel.
gleenn 3y ago
I was only a little concerned buying a Tesla Model Y with "300" mile range. I travel between Los Angel And San Diego frequently and there are a good number of charging stations to be sure. But even though the car tells you to keep between 20% and 80% charge, almost cutting the effective mileage in half, the extra stops just aren't that bad. What's true of lithium ion batteries is that the emptier the battery, the significantly faster the charging rate. So I can skip the stop on my route, but usually I just pull over when the percentage gets pretty low for maybe 20 to 30 minutes, and if I start pretty low, I'll easily get 30-40 percent charge increase. It's really not that painful, and at least in California, they put the charging locations near restaurants and coffee shops and malls so I can take a little break on those long trips. Sure, a car with 1000+ mile range sounds great. But driving a car that heavy with batteries sounds unnecessary and nearly all people are making far shorter trips to e.g. the grocery store 10 miles away and the little dinky trickle charger I use at home is more than adequate, I almost never have to do what ICE cars do on a regular basis, stopping at all the dirty gas stations, my car is usually more than charged over night.

atbpaca 3y ago

I ask this genuinely, how polluting is it to build a battery (mining, etc)? Is it worth it? How that compares with hydrogen produced by renewable and/or nuclear?

tuatoru 3y ago
There are a lot of assumptions that people would have to make in answering that question. What is the assumed life of the battery vs the hydrogen electrolyzer and storage/distribution network? What are the maintenance requirements over that life? Are you assuming best-practice mine management or worst practice? What fraction of each battery can be recycled, and what fraction of batteries will in fact be recycled? How much leakage of hydrogen will there be and how many fires will happen, with the pollution that attends them? And so on and on. The simple answer is that both of them are way less bad than what we have now (fossil fuels), and commercially the world has chosen batteries.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
A lot less than it is to burn lots of fuel. Basically manufacturing related emissions and damage is basically offset within the first year or so of driving a EV. After that first year they are basically cleaner than an ICE vehicle on every dimension that matters. And that's just current state of the art. Hydrogen for road transport simply makes no economical sense. It's been tried and it failed hard in the market. Even Toyota, who have been trying to convince world+dog that hydrogen was the future has failed to convince people to buy their hydrogen cars to the point that they are already making vastly more EVs than they've ever produced hydrogen cars. And that's them dragging their heels and barely trying to produce EVs. Hydrogen fueling infrastructure is a big obstacle. It's not happening. The handful of fueling stations that actually exist are barely being used and some are actually being shut down. If you are at all range anxious, hydrogen would be your nightmare fuel. Most of the world is well out of range from any hydrogen fuel station. You can't go anywhere if you have a hydrogen car. EVs on the other hand can go anywhere there are wall sockets.

am44jnsf 3y ago

surely the future of caravans/campers is the have onboard batteries that feed the towing car. I drive 1000km so rarely I'd be happy to tow a small trailer that's simply an extended range battery that you can hire for the journey.

bitwize 3y ago

Or, as I like to call them, "Rolling Inextinguishable Firebombs".

wilg 3y ago
big if true (not true)

mc32 3y ago

If they can get enough energy density, we can start to begin thinking about distance/weight trade-offs. Currently electrics exceed the mass of ICE vehicles and that means more tire wear and road wear, plus more damage in accidents to less massive cars and vehicles.

jillesvangurp 3y ago
Nope; provably false. Most ICE SUVs are about as big and heavy as their electrical equivalents. Electrifying existing ICE vehicles, which is a popular thing to do with many classical cars, typically barely increases their weight while vastly enhancing their performance and torque.
- mc32 3y ago
  Sorry: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1137033_will-the-extra-weight-of-evs-vs-ice-vehicles-worsen-road-safety https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1137033_will-the-extra-... https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/americas-new-weight-problem-electric-cars/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/americas-new-weight-probl...

snapplebobapple 3y ago

Am I the only one who only cares a little bit about range beyond 300kms and doesn't care about range at all beyond ~600 kms? My biggest problem with electric is there is a 15-20k price premium in my market right now over equivalent gas vehicles and I tend to buy vehicles and drive them into the ground over 15-20 years so if I buy electric I am 100% getting stuck with a fairly expensive battery replacement way before I usually get hit with an engine or transmission or other large problem in a gas vehicle, so life expectancy is way lower for my lower yearly kms spread over a long time period use case. When are the sodium ion batteries (or some other tech) that is both dramatically cheaper and likely durable enough to take battery replacement off the table as a risk for 15+ years of the vehicle's life?

voidmain0001 3y ago

I live in Canada and ordered a Toyota Sienna hybrid Oct-2022 and its estimated delivery date is spring 2025. If battery advancements are coming quick then by the time it arrives the Sienna’s batteries will be low-tech bricks.