5 ms·

So much wrong information in the comments here (or, rather, lack of information, because most comments are ill-informed). See for example https://www.carbonbri

by jwr 3y ago

So much wrong information in the comments here (or, rather, lack of information, because most comments are ill-informed). See for example https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-... for a good debunking of many common myths (good showing here). Yes, one should not accept the all-rosy picture of EVs being all-clean and ideal. But my EV a) is 4-5 times more efficient overall in converting energy into motion than a car that burns gasoline, b) has significantly fewer parts, c) of the energy I use, at least a portion comes from non-CO2-emitting sources (nuclear, solar, wind), d) when I brake or go downhill in the mountains, I recover some of the energy, while purely gasoline-powered cars recover none, and finally d) we seriously need to stop burning dinosaurs, or we'll cook ourselves. BTW, as a datapoint from someone who has done some calculations in real-world scenarios: when charging at home (EU), my ongoing cost-per-km is roughly half that of a gasoline-powered car.

mglz 3y ago
*Thank you* So much hearsay from people who never really used an EV. Yes, there are drawbacks. But except for extreme long range trips EVs are perfectly usable while being more energy efficient and less prone to breaking down.
- jwr 3y ago
  > except for extreme long range trips I'm writing this comment having just driven about 2000km-long trip with an EV :-) In cold climate (-5C). It's not my first long trip, either. My key observations (some were surprising to me): 1. You should expect to travel slower, as you will need to make breaks for charging, and the EV world presents an overly-rosy view of ranges. In a long trip, you use the battery from 10% to around 85%, so only 70-75% of your full "range" is usable. In my case rough estimates are a stop every 2h or 250km. 2. It's not a big deal. Especially if you can find a place to charge where you will also eat or drink. 3. I feel significantly better after a trip with those additional stops, than after a trip with uninterrupted several hours of driving.
  - ttymck 3y ago
    > In my case rough estimates are a stop every 2h or 250km... It's not a big deal. Especially if you can find a place to charge where you will also eat or drink. As a huge proponent of EVs, I have to imagine a major chunk of the population would disagree with you. Most people (in the US, at least) aren't leisurely taking road trips. They are in a hurry, trying not to eat up all 3 weeks of PTO with the annual family road trip. Aside from the inconvenience, finding something to do every 2 hours with a family of 4, like eating or drinking, is liable to become prohibitively expensive, or incredibly boring.
    - bdcravens 3y ago
      When I drove from Houston to San Diego, most of our stops were in the 20 minute range. That said, I have one of faster charging EVs, and we don't have kids.
    - supertrope 3y ago
      While extra time for EV charging is annoying, when using a gasoline car you still have to stop every two hours to pee, stretch your legs, and swap drivers. Sitting in an enclosed space for hours on end increases the risk of blood clots. So the actual increase in stopped time is e.g. 30 min to L3 charge to 80% minus the 15 min for a restroom/gasoline/coffee break multiplied by number of stops. So an hour lost per day.
      - logifail 3y ago
        > when using a gasoline car you still have to stop every two hours to pee, stretch your legs, and swap drivers Source? My longest ICE-powered trip recently was a ~500 mile trip across Europe with precisely one 15 minute break to pee and buy coffee. A total of ~8 hours on the road, and I was driving alone. On the plus side it was a very nice rented Audi.
        natch 3y ago
        My longest BEV trip in one day was 896 miles (1442 km), with about half a dozen short breaks, driving alone. 396 miles longer than your trip in your ICE car. Not sure what your data point is supposed to be proving.
- natch 3y ago
  EVs are fantastic for long road trips. Unless you buy your EV from a legacy automaker in which case there is no good charging network.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    Let’s not forget crappy drivers assist I’m on bus right now to pick up my ICE vehicle from repair shop. Will need to drive back home for 45 mines MYSELF!
    - natch 3y ago
      The best repair is no repair!
mc32 3y ago
One thing EVs need to address is the cost of repairs. Yes an ICE engine needs regular maintenance, but currently that cost savings in an EV is offset by the larger repair costs as well as wait times for repairs (due to parts availability, like dearth of OEM parts, like you can’t go down to NAPA and get parts.
- natch 3y ago
  What repairs?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- bbatha 3y ago
  That like OPs post is also a mixed bag. The high repair costs are largely because of EV manufactures trying out new things, like unibodies that are very expensive to replace, lack of 3rd party mechanics trained on them, and less commonly available parts at auto stores as you mention. The great news is that none of these are inherent with EVs, the traditional manufactures are using more construction in common with their ICE counter-parts and mechanics and parts will become available with time as the market adopts it. The other bonus is that EVs need a lot less maintenance to begin with because they are mechanically much simpler and regenerative breaking does a lot to cut back on wear and tear on the parts that do experience more issues like tires and brakes.
  - mc32 3y ago
    It’s true that it’s not inherent, however, the unfortunate thing is that they’re being built like this and it makes it costly to repair them. If they fix the above then yes, repair costs should come down and make their total cost of ownership make sense. As it is people try to convince others that because there are fewer moving parts on the drive train, that TCO is in theory lower, in practice it’s not yet due to all the above issues you mentioned.
- yumraj 3y ago
  EVs or only Teslas? I have a suspicion that that is true primarily for Teslas. I have a Toyota plug-in hybrid, which theoretically is an EVs as well as an ICE car, and its repair/maintainance is similar to that of an ICE. The high cost of Tesla repair is due to their vertical integration, perhaps limited capacity devoted to spares and monopoly over who repairs (max rent selling from repair). EVs should be cheaper to repair and maintain.
nlstitch 3y ago
Do you have a credible source for B? Because it isn't necessarily true. As for the parts that are there, they fail more often (see TUV reliability index), they are less servicable and they require specialized people to fix them. Just wait until you get out of your warranty period.
jemmyw 3y ago
Every time we get an article about EVs we get commenters here who just like to list the pitfalls, every time, over and over. It's pretty boring. No-body is forcing anyone to buy an EV (yet), so each of us can decide on the merits. I would love to have one, but I cannot afford one. Well, I could, I could easily get finance, but I wouldn't do it. I think if you live in the US, the way people on HN talk about cars, they must be cheaper there, finance is cheaper and wages are higher, such that you can just get a new one rather than making an agonising decision over months, even years. We're just about to replace our 15 year old car with a 4 year old 7 seater because the kids are fighting over space in the back too often. There was 1 EV on the market with enough space (as an aside, all newer cars have less space across the width because of more safety features in the doors) and it's 2.5x my budget. A new hybrid is 1.7x my budget. You can buy a hell of a lot of petrol in that price difference, more than we'll use in 10 years of driving. So we'll keep this one until some of our offspring have left and the next car might hopefully be an EV.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  I think people in the US are just entirely too willing to live in perpetual debt and then whine about how expensive everything is and how they can't retire comfortably. When people find out that we drive a (totally reliable) 2005 CR-V with 235K miles on it and are going to sell that and replace with a 9 year-old 2015 car, they can't reconcile that with me being "able to afford" a new car if I wanted. To them, the only reason to buy a used car is if you literally could't afford something new. It's madness, but I'm glad they buy/lease new cars so that I can have used cars to choose from later.

by jwr 3y ago

mglz 3y ago

*Thank you* So much hearsay from people who never really used an EV. Yes, there are drawbacks. But except for extreme long range trips EVs are perfectly usable while being more energy efficient and less prone to breaking down.

jwr 3y ago
> except for extreme long range trips I'm writing this comment having just driven about 2000km-long trip with an EV :-) In cold climate (-5C). It's not my first long trip, either. My key observations (some were surprising to me): 1. You should expect to travel slower, as you will need to make breaks for charging, and the EV world presents an overly-rosy view of ranges. In a long trip, you use the battery from 10% to around 85%, so only 70-75% of your full "range" is usable. In my case rough estimates are a stop every 2h or 250km. 2. It's not a big deal. Especially if you can find a place to charge where you will also eat or drink. 3. I feel significantly better after a trip with those additional stops, than after a trip with uninterrupted several hours of driving.
- ttymck 3y ago
  > In my case rough estimates are a stop every 2h or 250km... It's not a big deal. Especially if you can find a place to charge where you will also eat or drink. As a huge proponent of EVs, I have to imagine a major chunk of the population would disagree with you. Most people (in the US, at least) aren't leisurely taking road trips. They are in a hurry, trying not to eat up all 3 weeks of PTO with the annual family road trip. Aside from the inconvenience, finding something to do every 2 hours with a family of 4, like eating or drinking, is liable to become prohibitively expensive, or incredibly boring.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    When I drove from Houston to San Diego, most of our stops were in the 20 minute range. That said, I have one of faster charging EVs, and we don't have kids.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    While extra time for EV charging is annoying, when using a gasoline car you still have to stop every two hours to pee, stretch your legs, and swap drivers. Sitting in an enclosed space for hours on end increases the risk of blood clots. So the actual increase in stopped time is e.g. 30 min to L3 charge to 80% minus the 15 min for a restroom/gasoline/coffee break multiplied by number of stops. So an hour lost per day.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > when using a gasoline car you still have to stop every two hours to pee, stretch your legs, and swap drivers Source? My longest ICE-powered trip recently was a ~500 mile trip across Europe with precisely one 15 minute break to pee and buy coffee. A total of ~8 hours on the road, and I was driving alone. On the plus side it was a very nice rented Audi.
      - natch 3y ago
        My longest BEV trip in one day was 896 miles (1442 km), with about half a dozen short breaks, driving alone. 396 miles longer than your trip in your ICE car. Not sure what your data point is supposed to be proving.
natch 3y ago
EVs are fantastic for long road trips. Unless you buy your EV from a legacy automaker in which case there is no good charging network.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  Let’s not forget crappy drivers assist I’m on bus right now to pick up my ICE vehicle from repair shop. Will need to drive back home for 45 mines MYSELF!
  - natch 3y ago
    The best repair is no repair!

mc32 3y ago

One thing EVs need to address is the cost of repairs. Yes an ICE engine needs regular maintenance, but currently that cost savings in an EV is offset by the larger repair costs as well as wait times for repairs (due to parts availability, like dearth of OEM parts, like you can’t go down to NAPA and get parts.

natch 3y ago
What repairs?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bbatha 3y ago
That like OPs post is also a mixed bag. The high repair costs are largely because of EV manufactures trying out new things, like unibodies that are very expensive to replace, lack of 3rd party mechanics trained on them, and less commonly available parts at auto stores as you mention. The great news is that none of these are inherent with EVs, the traditional manufactures are using more construction in common with their ICE counter-parts and mechanics and parts will become available with time as the market adopts it. The other bonus is that EVs need a lot less maintenance to begin with because they are mechanically much simpler and regenerative breaking does a lot to cut back on wear and tear on the parts that do experience more issues like tires and brakes.
- mc32 3y ago
  It’s true that it’s not inherent, however, the unfortunate thing is that they’re being built like this and it makes it costly to repair them. If they fix the above then yes, repair costs should come down and make their total cost of ownership make sense. As it is people try to convince others that because there are fewer moving parts on the drive train, that TCO is in theory lower, in practice it’s not yet due to all the above issues you mentioned.
yumraj 3y ago
EVs or only Teslas? I have a suspicion that that is true primarily for Teslas. I have a Toyota plug-in hybrid, which theoretically is an EVs as well as an ICE car, and its repair/maintainance is similar to that of an ICE. The high cost of Tesla repair is due to their vertical integration, perhaps limited capacity devoted to spares and monopoly over who repairs (max rent selling from repair). EVs should be cheaper to repair and maintain.

nlstitch 3y ago

Do you have a credible source for B? Because it isn't necessarily true. As for the parts that are there, they fail more often (see TUV reliability index), they are less servicable and they require specialized people to fix them. Just wait until you get out of your warranty period.

jemmyw 3y ago

Every time we get an article about EVs we get commenters here who just like to list the pitfalls, every time, over and over. It's pretty boring. No-body is forcing anyone to buy an EV (yet), so each of us can decide on the merits. I would love to have one, but I cannot afford one. Well, I could, I could easily get finance, but I wouldn't do it. I think if you live in the US, the way people on HN talk about cars, they must be cheaper there, finance is cheaper and wages are higher, such that you can just get a new one rather than making an agonising decision over months, even years. We're just about to replace our 15 year old car with a 4 year old 7 seater because the kids are fighting over space in the back too often. There was 1 EV on the market with enough space (as an aside, all newer cars have less space across the width because of more safety features in the doors) and it's 2.5x my budget. A new hybrid is 1.7x my budget. You can buy a hell of a lot of petrol in that price difference, more than we'll use in 10 years of driving. So we'll keep this one until some of our offspring have left and the next car might hopefully be an EV.

sokoloff 3y ago
I think people in the US are just entirely too willing to live in perpetual debt and then whine about how expensive everything is and how they can't retire comfortably. When people find out that we drive a (totally reliable) 2005 CR-V with 235K miles on it and are going to sell that and replace with a 9 year-old 2015 car, they can't reconcile that with me being "able to afford" a new car if I wanted. To them, the only reason to buy a used car is if you literally could't afford something new. It's madness, but I'm glad they buy/lease new cars so that I can have used cars to choose from later.