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I remain skeptical until the products are real and affordable. No reason to buy an electric car now if they'll have potentially double the range in a few years

I remain skeptical until the products are real and affordable. No reason to buy an electric car now if they'll have potentially double the range in a few years.

xsmasher 3y ago
By that logic it never makes sense to buy a computer. It'll be obsolete in 18 months! Electric cars are cheaper to operate that gas RIGHT NOW, with less maintenance. No reason to hold off just because they're going to get better.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  For a Leaf the dealers response to ‘where do I go to get it serviced?’ was ‘don’t bother, nothing to service. That’s a slight exaggeration but not by much (diff oil needs changing and the tyres need rotating). It’s amazing.
- linuxftw 3y ago
  Companies literally made this calculus decades ago during the boom years of Moore's law when it came to purchasing computer hardware. > Electric cars are cheaper to operate that gas RIGHT NOW, with less maintenance. My timeline for owning a vehicle is 15+ years. I'm not going to buy something that is instantly obsolete. I'm also not going to buy all this vendor lock-in nonsense all these EVs come with. If they were basic rides with an electric drivetrain, sure, but they try to make everything the millennium falcon. You should look up how much fun it is getting service and parts on a new vehicle nowadays. You're rolling the dice that you won't burn down your home and/or have a lawn ornament because you can't get parts.
- Turskarama 3y ago
  I bought a Kia Rio, the cheapest EV I can buy in my country (Australia) is an MG4 for around twice the price (~$20k for the Kia, ~$40k for the MG). I don't drive very much, under 10,000 km per year. I've done the maths and for me an EV is more expensive over an expected 10 year lifespan. Granted I drive significantly less than average, but fuel costs here are a fair bit higher than in the US so for a lot of people buying at the bottom end of the market it may still not be true that an EV is cheaper.
- ffhhttt 3y ago
  Isn’t that wildly dependent on the cost of electricity and gas in the area you live in?
CamperBob2 3y ago
Yet another problem that could have been avoided if government had had the foresight to enforce a technology-agnostic swappable battery standard.
- linuxftw 3y ago
  We don't need the government for this. Consumers could refuse to buy proprietary solutions.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Your sense of optimism is, well, inspirational. Meanwhile, on this planet, the necessary standard didn't emerge from government or industry.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  You got it, swappable batteries is the key to EV mass-adoption. Do people care about range with internal combustion vehicles? Not really, if they can get between gas stations. It takes very little time to refill, and each vehicle (regardless of manufacturer) uses the same stuff. The trouble is that standardizing when there is hot competition is very political. Things need to cool down a little before it can be done, and you don't want to standardize until designs naturally converge. You don't want government to get involved early when engineering is involved. EVs will be a pain until a standard emerges though. I can't wait until I can drive up to a station and get a pre-charged battery.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    My thinking was always that the physical packages should be standardized -- think two 'AA's for a Miata and twenty 'D's for a Peterbilt -- along with the connectors. Also a rudimentary bus protocol to communicate the battery's parameters to chargers and loads, store usage history, keep track of expected remaining life, and such. But literally nothing else other than basic environmental and safety considerations. A battery must be recyclable in some form or fashion, will not usually set your house on fire, cannot explode under normal operating conditions, cannot emit more than X milliroentgens per hour, whatever. Other than that, no rules. Don't standardize the chemistry, or the voltage, or the current limit, or the charging rate, or anything else... just make it fit. Then require the industry to adopt standardized power converters and chargers under similar auspices. For the hardware, don't specify voltage, don't specify cost, don't specify charging time, don't mandate anything except the ability to charge a particular class of battery. Simply mandating the form factor, connector, and handshaking could have made all the difference. We would have manufacturers competing to see who could build the most economical and/or performant batteries, chargers and converters. Charging could take place at times and places that optimize efficiency. Filling up an EV could take less time than getting gas, not more. And there would be no chicken-and-egg problem to impede adoption, as we're seeing now. You would not be stuck with the batteries or the charger that your car came with. We will kick ourselves for the next 50 years for not doing this.

I remain skeptical until the products are real and affordable. No reason to buy an electric car now if they'll have potentially double the range in a few years.

xsmasher 3y ago

By that logic it never makes sense to buy a computer. It'll be obsolete in 18 months! Electric cars are cheaper to operate that gas RIGHT NOW, with less maintenance. No reason to hold off just because they're going to get better.

lostlogin 3y ago
For a Leaf the dealers response to ‘where do I go to get it serviced?’ was ‘don’t bother, nothing to service. That’s a slight exaggeration but not by much (diff oil needs changing and the tyres need rotating). It’s amazing.
linuxftw 3y ago
Companies literally made this calculus decades ago during the boom years of Moore's law when it came to purchasing computer hardware. > Electric cars are cheaper to operate that gas RIGHT NOW, with less maintenance. My timeline for owning a vehicle is 15+ years. I'm not going to buy something that is instantly obsolete. I'm also not going to buy all this vendor lock-in nonsense all these EVs come with. If they were basic rides with an electric drivetrain, sure, but they try to make everything the millennium falcon. You should look up how much fun it is getting service and parts on a new vehicle nowadays. You're rolling the dice that you won't burn down your home and/or have a lawn ornament because you can't get parts.
Turskarama 3y ago
I bought a Kia Rio, the cheapest EV I can buy in my country (Australia) is an MG4 for around twice the price (~$20k for the Kia, ~$40k for the MG). I don't drive very much, under 10,000 km per year. I've done the maths and for me an EV is more expensive over an expected 10 year lifespan. Granted I drive significantly less than average, but fuel costs here are a fair bit higher than in the US so for a lot of people buying at the bottom end of the market it may still not be true that an EV is cheaper.
ffhhttt 3y ago
Isn’t that wildly dependent on the cost of electricity and gas in the area you live in?

CamperBob2 3y ago

Yet another problem that could have been avoided if government had had the foresight to enforce a technology-agnostic swappable battery standard.

linuxftw 3y ago
We don't need the government for this. Consumers could refuse to buy proprietary solutions.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Your sense of optimism is, well, inspirational. Meanwhile, on this planet, the necessary standard didn't emerge from government or industry.
gorjusborg 3y ago
You got it, swappable batteries is the key to EV mass-adoption. Do people care about range with internal combustion vehicles? Not really, if they can get between gas stations. It takes very little time to refill, and each vehicle (regardless of manufacturer) uses the same stuff. The trouble is that standardizing when there is hot competition is very political. Things need to cool down a little before it can be done, and you don't want to standardize until designs naturally converge. You don't want government to get involved early when engineering is involved. EVs will be a pain until a standard emerges though. I can't wait until I can drive up to a station and get a pre-charged battery.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  My thinking was always that the physical packages should be standardized -- think two 'AA's for a Miata and twenty 'D's for a Peterbilt -- along with the connectors. Also a rudimentary bus protocol to communicate the battery's parameters to chargers and loads, store usage history, keep track of expected remaining life, and such. But literally nothing else other than basic environmental and safety considerations. A battery must be recyclable in some form or fashion, will not usually set your house on fire, cannot explode under normal operating conditions, cannot emit more than X milliroentgens per hour, whatever. Other than that, no rules. Don't standardize the chemistry, or the voltage, or the current limit, or the charging rate, or anything else... just make it fit. Then require the industry to adopt standardized power converters and chargers under similar auspices. For the hardware, don't specify voltage, don't specify cost, don't specify charging time, don't mandate anything except the ability to charge a particular class of battery. Simply mandating the form factor, connector, and handshaking could have made all the difference. We would have manufacturers competing to see who could build the most economical and/or performant batteries, chargers and converters. Charging could take place at times and places that optimize efficiency. Filling up an EV could take less time than getting gas, not more. And there would be no chicken-and-egg problem to impede adoption, as we're seeing now. You would not be stuck with the batteries or the charger that your car came with. We will kick ourselves for the next 50 years for not doing this.