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There's an even bigger issue that noone seems to get apart from Tesla: Is there actually a market for such a battery? Today's EVs can already be used for normal

There's an even bigger issue that noone seems to get apart from Tesla: Is there actually a market for such a battery? Today's EVs can already be used for normal daily commutes without even thinking at all about range anxiety. That covers 95% of all drives for normal people. And the remaining 5% can be covered with some slightly more sophisticated route-planning. Tesla has already come out and said they could make cars that drive twice as far, but there is no real market for that. And since battery resources are a limiting factor that pretty much grow linearly with range, they rather make twice as many cars.

silverpepsi 3y ago
Pretending you can logically deduce what the market most desires based on facts about their lives is a theory that is really far out there 1. Do you have any memory of when SUVs went mainstream? Who'd have thought single women would want to pay the vehicle and fuel premium to commute so inefficiently. Of course men as well. 2. Americans are addicted to options that remove limitations out of anxiety over those limitations, even when the extra cost is very low ROI. Look at data plan, buffet, etc. preferences
- simondotau 3y ago
  You know what's extremely cheap to manufacture? A larger fuel tank. How many mainstream passenger cars are being sold with a >80L (>20 gal) fuel tank because prospective car buyers "are addicted to options that remove limitations out of anxiety"? Americans are addicted to features, lifestyle and luxury (actual or perceived).
  - Twirrim 3y ago
    > You know what's extremely cheap to manufacture? A larger fuel tank. How many mainstream passenger cars are being sold with a >80L (>20 gal) fuel tank because prospective car buyers "are addicted to options that remove limitations out of anxiety"? It takes mere minutes to refill a tank, and there are gas stations everywhere throughout the country. It's quick, and incredibly easy. Far faster than EVs, and far more common that EV charging stations. As a result, there's really no value in tanks that are that much larger, there's no range anxiety because even going long distance cross-country you're never that far away from a place to refuel.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      These mythical Toyota batteries can supposedly run 10 minute stops every 700 miles. That's already way beyond what any normal person could handle. I'm comfortable doing long distances in one day and even I would be taking 20+ minute breaks every 300km (200mi) or so. The current state-of-the-art long range EVs are plenty good enough with range and charging speeds, assuming a reliable charging network.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      There is value. One of my cars has a 20 gallon tank and it's nice to go a few extra days without refueling for regular commuting/around town driving, or having the option to go an extra couple of hundred miles on the highway on longer trips.
  - heavenlyblue 3y ago
    Larger fuel tank makes the car heavier and thus less fuel efficient
    - Detrytus 3y ago
      Additonal 10 gallons of fuel is a rounding error to a typical car mass, its effect on fuel efficiency is not detectable without precise lab equipment. Certainly you're not going to notice that when paying for gas.
      - silverpepsi 3y ago
        Well, I dunno if you've ever driven a performance car say around 420hp but having one extra passenger is absolutely noticable and undesirable, it really slows you down. 4 passengers in the car and it's no longer a fun drive. Not a rounding error as you can directly feel it. I expect dragging around 120 lbs extra fuel for 100k miles does become noticable on the bank book, you'd be surprised.
mnw21cam 3y ago
My diesel car from 2020 has a 40-ish litre tank and a range of around 500 miles. I just drove back from my holidays yesterday, which took nearly six hours, including three stops for loo breaks, lunch, and looking around a very small museum. It still had half the tank remaining when I got home. I have never had range anxiety with this car. A range of 745 miles means ten hours of driving in the best of circumstances without a stop. I cannot imagine wanting to drive for ten hours without stopping. I cannot understand why EV manufacturers are putting such large batteries into cars, especially when I hear how much heavier they are making them.
- rgmerk 3y ago
  In the case of EV pickups, it’s about towing. Towing a 3 ton trailer at highway speeds roughly triples the energy consumption of a pickup truck, so for 200 mile towing range you need 600 miles of unladen highway range.
- swalling 3y ago
  The problem isn’t needing to stop, it’s charge time and availability. When I stop with an ICE car during a road trip it’s for 15 minutes max and I know I can do it basically whenever I want. With an EV, you have to carefully plan your road trip around fueling.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Outside of few crazy people no normal people drive 5-6h at a time. If you can get out on the highway, plug in and spend 20min doing basic necessities you are find.
    - swalling 3y ago
      The United States is a huge country and lots of people take road trips with 5-6hr drives. If you live in California you can easily do 5+ hours and not even leave the state.
      - 3y ago
guidedlight 3y ago
Places like Australia has some seriously large distances, with some of the most isolated populations on earth. Sure it's a small market (most Australians live in their state's capital city), but there needs to be some consideration for those that need serious range. The issue is frequently mentioned when talking about banning ICE vehicles. Toyota Landcruiser's with auxiliary fuel tanks (over 240 litres) are the workhorses in outback Australia.
- valval 3y ago
  Do these long distances require the driver to drive more than say 6 hours without stopping? If so, why? It’s a problem of charger infra, not range. We’ve already solved range.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  Stuff like this is always brought up. And while it is true in principle, it doesn't change the above statement. Almost 90% of Australians live in cities and average distance driven per day by Australians is 30-40km. There will always be a small, single digit percentage market for long haul transport that needs alternatives. But the mass market doesn't need better EVs. That's why range has stagnated over the past years. Noone is willing to pay twice as much for slightly less inconvenience once every 6 months. Sure, if we had a working breakthrough battery that could deliver twice the performance for the same price it would be great, but in reality it would only be great for about 5% of personal traffic.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Yeah, more importantly: until cities are 100% EV, I wouldn't worry about rural. Realistically, we can probably just never worry about it: there are far more cars used in cities then in the country. In a case where you're trying to get emitted CO2 to zero, you'd probably prefer to just subsidize ethanol and renewable diesel to manage super-long haul to get their - too many tractors and other equipment we also need to run.
- xtracto 3y ago
  In Mexico and Singapore, Nissan introduced the Epower technology which is a hybrid in which the combustion part only serves as generator. All the driving machinery is electrical, and both the mpg and range are great. In hindsight I think it's an obvious technooogy: the conplexity of the combustion generator is pretty low, doesn't need gearbox, pistols, cylinders and whatnot. And the fuel tank still gives good range NY recharging the battery. Got a Kicks with this tech, and so far it has been pretty good for both city and the road (5 hr drives to the beach!)
Krasnol 3y ago
Of course, there is a market for it. Even if you don't have to have it, charging times and rage are the main arguments gas car owners bring up in discussions as a reason for why they don't buy an electric car.
Twirrim 3y ago
> Tesla has already come out and said they could make cars that drive twice as far You actually believed them? Tesla, that has a long track record of lying about what they can do, when they can deliver etc? That is facing major competition from every established car manufacturer who are all shipping vehicles with similar range to Tesla? If they could release a car with double the distance/capacity they would. It would be a huge competitive advantage that no other manufacturer (except _possibly_ Toyota, if the article is to be believed) can match.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  > You actually believed them? Tesla, that has a long track record of lying about what they can do This is just basic physics not a conspiracy theory. It simply doesn't make sense to massively improve distance.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  There are cars like the Lucid Air which actually offer significantly more range than even the long range Teslas, while using the same battery tech (at a higher price point of course). They just recently had to scale down production because demand was waaaay below expectations. Tesla's best selling variants are also not the long range models, so it's not surprising that people won't pay for another 30% premium on something they barely ever need.
- zaroth 3y ago
  Actually it wouldn’t be an advantage. It would be a huge sunk cost (and added weight bogging down performance and handling) for a feature that virtually never gets used. Tesla increases distance ideally by increasing efficiency. Their cars consistently score the best/lowest Wh/mi for their weight, by doing things like designing their own heat pump instead of traditional AC and resistive heating. Because EV production is virtually always constrained by battery production, the number of cars you can sell is typically your battery production capacity (MWh) divided by your battery capacity per vehicle. Their inherent efficiency combined with the Supercharger network to support longer trips lets them produce more cars at a lower cost / price.

silverpepsi 3y ago

Pretending you can logically deduce what the market most desires based on facts about their lives is a theory that is really far out there 1. Do you have any memory of when SUVs went mainstream? Who'd have thought single women would want to pay the vehicle and fuel premium to commute so inefficiently. Of course men as well. 2. Americans are addicted to options that remove limitations out of anxiety over those limitations, even when the extra cost is very low ROI. Look at data plan, buffet, etc. preferences

simondotau 3y ago
You know what's extremely cheap to manufacture? A larger fuel tank. How many mainstream passenger cars are being sold with a >80L (>20 gal) fuel tank because prospective car buyers "are addicted to options that remove limitations out of anxiety"? Americans are addicted to features, lifestyle and luxury (actual or perceived).
- Twirrim 3y ago
  > You know what's extremely cheap to manufacture? A larger fuel tank. How many mainstream passenger cars are being sold with a >80L (>20 gal) fuel tank because prospective car buyers "are addicted to options that remove limitations out of anxiety"? It takes mere minutes to refill a tank, and there are gas stations everywhere throughout the country. It's quick, and incredibly easy. Far faster than EVs, and far more common that EV charging stations. As a result, there's really no value in tanks that are that much larger, there's no range anxiety because even going long distance cross-country you're never that far away from a place to refuel.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    These mythical Toyota batteries can supposedly run 10 minute stops every 700 miles. That's already way beyond what any normal person could handle. I'm comfortable doing long distances in one day and even I would be taking 20+ minute breaks every 300km (200mi) or so. The current state-of-the-art long range EVs are plenty good enough with range and charging speeds, assuming a reliable charging network.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    There is value. One of my cars has a 20 gallon tank and it's nice to go a few extra days without refueling for regular commuting/around town driving, or having the option to go an extra couple of hundred miles on the highway on longer trips.
- heavenlyblue 3y ago
  Larger fuel tank makes the car heavier and thus less fuel efficient
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    Additonal 10 gallons of fuel is a rounding error to a typical car mass, its effect on fuel efficiency is not detectable without precise lab equipment. Certainly you're not going to notice that when paying for gas.
    - silverpepsi 3y ago
      Well, I dunno if you've ever driven a performance car say around 420hp but having one extra passenger is absolutely noticable and undesirable, it really slows you down. 4 passengers in the car and it's no longer a fun drive. Not a rounding error as you can directly feel it. I expect dragging around 120 lbs extra fuel for 100k miles does become noticable on the bank book, you'd be surprised.

mnw21cam 3y ago

My diesel car from 2020 has a 40-ish litre tank and a range of around 500 miles. I just drove back from my holidays yesterday, which took nearly six hours, including three stops for loo breaks, lunch, and looking around a very small museum. It still had half the tank remaining when I got home. I have never had range anxiety with this car. A range of 745 miles means ten hours of driving in the best of circumstances without a stop. I cannot imagine wanting to drive for ten hours without stopping. I cannot understand why EV manufacturers are putting such large batteries into cars, especially when I hear how much heavier they are making them.

rgmerk 3y ago
In the case of EV pickups, it’s about towing. Towing a 3 ton trailer at highway speeds roughly triples the energy consumption of a pickup truck, so for 200 mile towing range you need 600 miles of unladen highway range.
swalling 3y ago
The problem isn’t needing to stop, it’s charge time and availability. When I stop with an ICE car during a road trip it’s for 15 minutes max and I know I can do it basically whenever I want. With an EV, you have to carefully plan your road trip around fueling.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Outside of few crazy people no normal people drive 5-6h at a time. If you can get out on the highway, plug in and spend 20min doing basic necessities you are find.
  - swalling 3y ago
    The United States is a huge country and lots of people take road trips with 5-6hr drives. If you live in California you can easily do 5+ hours and not even leave the state.
    - 3y ago

guidedlight 3y ago

Places like Australia has some seriously large distances, with some of the most isolated populations on earth. Sure it's a small market (most Australians live in their state's capital city), but there needs to be some consideration for those that need serious range. The issue is frequently mentioned when talking about banning ICE vehicles. Toyota Landcruiser's with auxiliary fuel tanks (over 240 litres) are the workhorses in outback Australia.

valval 3y ago
Do these long distances require the driver to drive more than say 6 hours without stopping? If so, why? It’s a problem of charger infra, not range. We’ve already solved range.
sigmoid10 3y ago
Stuff like this is always brought up. And while it is true in principle, it doesn't change the above statement. Almost 90% of Australians live in cities and average distance driven per day by Australians is 30-40km. There will always be a small, single digit percentage market for long haul transport that needs alternatives. But the mass market doesn't need better EVs. That's why range has stagnated over the past years. Noone is willing to pay twice as much for slightly less inconvenience once every 6 months. Sure, if we had a working breakthrough battery that could deliver twice the performance for the same price it would be great, but in reality it would only be great for about 5% of personal traffic.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Yeah, more importantly: until cities are 100% EV, I wouldn't worry about rural. Realistically, we can probably just never worry about it: there are far more cars used in cities then in the country. In a case where you're trying to get emitted CO2 to zero, you'd probably prefer to just subsidize ethanol and renewable diesel to manage super-long haul to get their - too many tractors and other equipment we also need to run.
xtracto 3y ago
In Mexico and Singapore, Nissan introduced the Epower technology which is a hybrid in which the combustion part only serves as generator. All the driving machinery is electrical, and both the mpg and range are great. In hindsight I think it's an obvious technooogy: the conplexity of the combustion generator is pretty low, doesn't need gearbox, pistols, cylinders and whatnot. And the fuel tank still gives good range NY recharging the battery. Got a Kicks with this tech, and so far it has been pretty good for both city and the road (5 hr drives to the beach!)

Krasnol 3y ago

Of course, there is a market for it. Even if you don't have to have it, charging times and rage are the main arguments gas car owners bring up in discussions as a reason for why they don't buy an electric car.

Twirrim 3y ago

> Tesla has already come out and said they could make cars that drive twice as far You actually believed them? Tesla, that has a long track record of lying about what they can do, when they can deliver etc? That is facing major competition from every established car manufacturer who are all shipping vehicles with similar range to Tesla? If they could release a car with double the distance/capacity they would. It would be a huge competitive advantage that no other manufacturer (except _possibly_ Toyota, if the article is to be believed) can match.

panick21_ 3y ago
> You actually believed them? Tesla, that has a long track record of lying about what they can do This is just basic physics not a conspiracy theory. It simply doesn't make sense to massively improve distance.
sigmoid10 3y ago
There are cars like the Lucid Air which actually offer significantly more range than even the long range Teslas, while using the same battery tech (at a higher price point of course). They just recently had to scale down production because demand was waaaay below expectations. Tesla's best selling variants are also not the long range models, so it's not surprising that people won't pay for another 30% premium on something they barely ever need.
zaroth 3y ago
Actually it wouldn’t be an advantage. It would be a huge sunk cost (and added weight bogging down performance and handling) for a feature that virtually never gets used. Tesla increases distance ideally by increasing efficiency. Their cars consistently score the best/lowest Wh/mi for their weight, by doing things like designing their own heat pump instead of traditional AC and resistive heating. Because EV production is virtually always constrained by battery production, the number of cars you can sell is typically your battery production capacity (MWh) divided by your battery capacity per vehicle. Their inherent efficiency combined with the Supercharger network to support longer trips lets them produce more cars at a lower cost / price.