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1) Well, Volkswagen have one planned for 2025, the ID 2all for about 25000 USD [1]. The BYD e2 costs around 15000 USD [2]. It's almost a physical fact that EVs

1) Well, Volkswagen have one planned for 2025, the ID 2all for about 25000 USD [1]. The BYD e2 costs around 15000 USD [2]. It's almost a physical fact that EVs are cheaper than gasoline cars to produce. Right now the prices are higher because of marketing (they can charge more as they have limited production capacity), they designed the cars as premium, suppliers have not yet optimized and standardized their EV components to the same degree as their combustion engine products and their volumes are lower. 2) Better range than gas cars was maybe a bit wrong, but what I meant was good enough to make any difference in practice. You can drive an EV long enough that your bladder or stomach says stop before the car. And with fast charging in less than 15 minutes, it's about the same it takes to take a quick break. 3) Well they can be faster in acceleration if needed, but that is of course not necessary. They are quieter, better torque etc. 4) They are heavier today because the batteries are over-dimensioned. In a couple of years, with the fast charging technology being introduced today, the battery could be made half the size. And the weight of SUVs where it adds no functionality versus a regular form factor car is just dumb payload. A regular form-factor EV car weighs same or less than a gasoline SUV. 5) Environmental costs? Yeah, as if gas cars have been good for the environment up until now. Try to recycle that gasoline. At least batteries can be recycled. [1] https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a43335573/vw-id-2all-affordable-ev-concept-25000/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a43335573/vw-id-2al... [2] https://www.arenaev.com/15000_byd_e2_comes_with_405_km_of_range_and_2_years_of_free_internet-news-1650.php https://www.arenaev.com/15000_byd_e2_comes_with_405_km_of_ra...

b112 3y ago
A lot of your points conflict. For example, you talk about range, then talk about 1/2ing the size of battery packs. But: 1) When we see it, we'll see it. However, the '2all' @ 25kUSD is still 2x the price of the cheapest gas car in Canada (under $20k). But again, we'll see. However, it is absolutely not a fact that EVs are cheaper to make. "Produce" perhaps, if you mean "assemble", although even this isn't a complete given. My point here is, the battery packs are currently very expensive, and are currently what is keeping price high. Nothing else. And the thing we're reading about? Is a market aberration. Still, battery pricing is falling consistently, which is why I say 10 years. 2) This has been discussed over and over. If you're going to say "15 minutes to 80%", then for gas you must say "2 minutes to 100%". That is because you are discounting paying, getting on/off the road, and so on. Your 15 minutes turns into at least 25 minutes, when adding in time to pay, find the charger, etc. Some days I drive 1600km, which is 4 refuels, which is 40 minutes for gas (and that's high), and for electric that's close to 2 hours for electric. But the true problem here is, finding a fast charger along anywhere you may drive, and then.. it not being broken. It not being in use. One day, we'll be there. Charging will drop to under 5 minutes. Charging stations will be everywhere, and so on. But that isn't in 2 years. At all. For example, there are almost no non-tesla fast chargers anywhere in Canada. Trying to drive 3000km can be hard, and for Canada, that's not an unusual trip. 3) Fine, so you admit this is not an absolute. Fair enough. 4) Again with a 'couple of years'. This means 2 years. No. Things don't change that fast. This is hardware engineering, not code. You don't make clean and make install and done. I'm not even sure what you mean with "over provisioning". You're not claiming that less range is somehow going to fix the weight?! Oh great, let's go to a measly 200km range, so an electric car now weights what a gas car does? Put another way, if you take the form of a car, make it electric with 400km range, or gas engine instead, the electric will weight double. Go look at how heavy Teslas are with range. Literally, you're completely and totally wrong here, an EV weights 2x as much as a gas counterpart. And beyond the 2x weight? As you drive a gas car, it gets lighter as the fuel is used. Not so with electric. 5) You're using a whataboutism to try to brush aside things. The point is, electric cars do pollute, and in different ways. One of the thing that always erked me, is that we never seem to prepare. Recycling in North American is often "ship the thing 5000km over sea in a polluting boat, then have a 3rd world nation throw the recycling into a ditch and cover it". We can do better, but often do not.
- flakeoil 3y ago
  Regarding range, sure in huge Canada or if driving 3000km in one day/night is something you do often, then maybe a gasoline car is better. But for the average person who is commuting, visiting friends and family in the region (< 200-500km), sightseeing, holidays and business trips then I think an EV has no problems with range today and even less in two years. And the time of charging the EV and filling up the gasoline car is about the same I would say as paying works the same (credit card). With the EV after it's plugged in you go to the rest room or restaurant and when you come back, off you go. With the gasoline car you have to stand there while filling up, then go parking, then go to the rest room. At the end of the day, it's the same. And the charging points will grow in line with the EV adoption. It will just explode once we reach a tipping point in a couple of years. Remember with an EV you can leave home fully charged and when you arrive to your hotel or family or office you can charge again (sure maybe your family/friends have no fast charger yet, but they sure will very soon and you can charge slowly overnight with a regular outlet). With a gasoline car you have to make sure to go fill up before you leave and when you arrive you have to go to a gas station instead of charge it at the parking space you park at anyway. Regarding environment, when it comes to real trash (plastics and such) you might be right that it is shipped to a poor country and dumped in the sea, but for metals I'm quite sure it is recycled. Metal recycling has existed for decades and is a profitable and relatively local business. Don't forget that gasoline cars consist of a huge amount of metals too.
  - b112 3y ago
    Again, a lot of what you say is just an excuse for things, not actually refuting what I say. For example, charging time. It's not even remotely the same. It literally takes less than 1 minute to fill a car, once you start the process. And saying "well, I personally like to stop and sit around for 20 minutes each time I stop for fuel" isn't really responding to the long charge time issue. Or the "only 80%" issue. I get 650km range an average gas guzzler, but I start looking for fuel well before that. And that's with a gas car, where fuel is plenty, yet there are stretches of the road where it may be 100km with no gas. Yet even in more populated areas of the US and Canada, once you are driving outside of the city, on the interstate, it can easily and often be 50+km between fill ups. And only a loon would let their vehicle get down to 0km when looking for fuel. So you need to have 100km+ spare range, always. ALWAYS. And a lot of electrics have 400km range. And .8400=320km. So we're talking about ~ 300km range for electric per fast fuel up, and for a car, 550km range. And I have 2000km to drive today. Now I have to stop 7 times 25 minutes, let's say 3 hours+, or I can stop 45 minutes, or 20 minutes. OK. That's the same, right? But of course: chargers are missing or no where on a great many routes * chargers are often not fast chargers * many hotels don't have chargers A year ago, I thought of going electric. To drive from Quebec to California takes me 3 days by gas. It takes closer to 7 days by electric, because: * I cannot drive the same route (rural areas with no chargers) * Some routes have no fast chargers (so I cannot drive as far as fast) These are real issues, and they will NOT be solved in a tiny period of time, like 2 years. That's why I say, try 10 to 20 years! And the problems are absolutely the same for shorter distances. There is a massive lack of fast chargers everywhere. During busy times (Christmas, to visit family!) the existing chargers are often in use.. and you have to wait an hour to get one! No, that problem doesn't exist for gas, there is lots of capacity and waiting means a 1 minute delay, not a 20+ delay per person. These are real issues. Real problems. Pretending it will just be fine, because "reasons" which don't address the issue, is a problem. And it's lead to another stupidity. A lack of hybrids. Hybrids are perfect for the person that wants to charge at home, at the store, do local "stuff", and then when take longer trips once a week, use gas! It is the "bridge". It is the path to large scale adoption without backlash. It is the way to get even resistant people to adopt, and mostly use electric. It is the key to success, but people are often "all or none", and this is the doom of all good endeavors. Here's another example. If two magical things happened: 1) every person, today, magically had their car replaced with electric 2) all gas pumps were magically replaced with electric chargers Society would collapse. There is not enough transmission capability, to run those chargers. It would be like doubling the number of homes connected to the grid. Not only would there not be enough clean things (nuclear, solar, wind, hydro), and we'd have to scramble to start burning more things we shut down (coal, for example), it would also take years to build more power lines, transformers, to get more power to all those fast chargers. So yes, it's going to take 10 to 20 years to get everyone electric. Period. There's literally no other way. It isn't just about buying cars, but also about installing chargers, and creating additional power capacity and transformers, and transmission towers, and wire, and on and on and on and on. This is why hybrids are perfect. They reduce friction in society, whilst at the same time ensuring that if power is hard to get in certain regions, those same people can still use gas until things are fixed. This is why I am a big h2 proponent. It is an alternate path to electrification. It provides fast recharge, and it also can be produced great distances away, and transmitted by pipe. But anyhow. You're probably one of these people that think h2 is "hard to do", even though there are 3+ car manufacturers that have h2 with 600+km range, and green h2 can be brought online just as fast as any power plan we'll need as we expand electric car use.

b112 3y ago

A lot of your points conflict. For example, you talk about range, then talk about 1/2ing the size of battery packs. But: 1) When we see it, we'll see it. However, the '2all' @ 25kUSD is still 2x the price of the cheapest gas car in Canada (under $20k). But again, we'll see. However, it is absolutely not a fact that EVs are cheaper to make. "Produce" perhaps, if you mean "assemble", although even this isn't a complete given. My point here is, the battery packs are currently very expensive, and are currently what is keeping price high. Nothing else. And the thing we're reading about? Is a market aberration. Still, battery pricing is falling consistently, which is why I say 10 years. 2) This has been discussed over and over. If you're going to say "15 minutes to 80%", then for gas you must say "2 minutes to 100%". That is because you are discounting paying, getting on/off the road, and so on. Your 15 minutes turns into at least 25 minutes, when adding in time to pay, find the charger, etc. Some days I drive 1600km, which is 4 refuels, which is 40 minutes for gas (and that's high), and for electric that's close to 2 hours for electric. But the true problem here is, finding a fast charger along anywhere you may drive, and then.. it not being broken. It not being in use. One day, we'll be there. Charging will drop to under 5 minutes. Charging stations will be everywhere, and so on. But that isn't in 2 years. At all. For example, there are almost no non-tesla fast chargers anywhere in Canada. Trying to drive 3000km can be hard, and for Canada, that's not an unusual trip. 3) Fine, so you admit this is not an absolute. Fair enough. 4) Again with a 'couple of years'. This means 2 years. No. Things don't change that fast. This is hardware engineering, not code. You don't make clean and make install and done. I'm not even sure what you mean with "over provisioning". You're not claiming that less range is somehow going to fix the weight?! Oh great, let's go to a measly 200km range, so an electric car now weights what a gas car does? Put another way, if you take the form of a car, make it electric with 400km range, or gas engine instead, the electric will weight double. Go look at how heavy Teslas are with range. Literally, you're completely and totally wrong here, an EV weights 2x as much as a gas counterpart. And beyond the 2x weight? As you drive a gas car, it gets lighter as the fuel is used. Not so with electric. 5) You're using a whataboutism to try to brush aside things. The point is, electric cars do pollute, and in different ways. One of the thing that always erked me, is that we never seem to prepare. Recycling in North American is often "ship the thing 5000km over sea in a polluting boat, then have a 3rd world nation throw the recycling into a ditch and cover it". We can do better, but often do not.

flakeoil 3y ago
Regarding range, sure in huge Canada or if driving 3000km in one day/night is something you do often, then maybe a gasoline car is better. But for the average person who is commuting, visiting friends and family in the region (< 200-500km), sightseeing, holidays and business trips then I think an EV has no problems with range today and even less in two years. And the time of charging the EV and filling up the gasoline car is about the same I would say as paying works the same (credit card). With the EV after it's plugged in you go to the rest room or restaurant and when you come back, off you go. With the gasoline car you have to stand there while filling up, then go parking, then go to the rest room. At the end of the day, it's the same. And the charging points will grow in line with the EV adoption. It will just explode once we reach a tipping point in a couple of years. Remember with an EV you can leave home fully charged and when you arrive to your hotel or family or office you can charge again (sure maybe your family/friends have no fast charger yet, but they sure will very soon and you can charge slowly overnight with a regular outlet). With a gasoline car you have to make sure to go fill up before you leave and when you arrive you have to go to a gas station instead of charge it at the parking space you park at anyway. Regarding environment, when it comes to real trash (plastics and such) you might be right that it is shipped to a poor country and dumped in the sea, but for metals I'm quite sure it is recycled. Metal recycling has existed for decades and is a profitable and relatively local business. Don't forget that gasoline cars consist of a huge amount of metals too.
- b112 3y ago
  Again, a lot of what you say is just an excuse for things, not actually refuting what I say. For example, charging time. It's not even remotely the same. It literally takes less than 1 minute to fill a car, once you start the process. And saying "well, I personally like to stop and sit around for 20 minutes each time I stop for fuel" isn't really responding to the long charge time issue. Or the "only 80%" issue. I get 650km range an average gas guzzler, but I start looking for fuel well before that. And that's with a gas car, where fuel is plenty, yet there are stretches of the road where it may be 100km with no gas. Yet even in more populated areas of the US and Canada, once you are driving outside of the city, on the interstate, it can easily and often be 50+km between fill ups. And only a loon would let their vehicle get down to 0km when looking for fuel. So you need to have 100km+ spare range, always. ALWAYS. And a lot of electrics have 400km range. And .8400=320km. So we're talking about ~ 300km range for electric per fast fuel up, and for a car, 550km range. And I have 2000km to drive today. Now I have to stop 7 times 25 minutes, let's say 3 hours+, or I can stop 45 minutes, or 20 minutes. OK. That's the same, right? But of course: chargers are missing or no where on a great many routes * chargers are often not fast chargers * many hotels don't have chargers A year ago, I thought of going electric. To drive from Quebec to California takes me 3 days by gas. It takes closer to 7 days by electric, because: * I cannot drive the same route (rural areas with no chargers) * Some routes have no fast chargers (so I cannot drive as far as fast) These are real issues, and they will NOT be solved in a tiny period of time, like 2 years. That's why I say, try 10 to 20 years! And the problems are absolutely the same for shorter distances. There is a massive lack of fast chargers everywhere. During busy times (Christmas, to visit family!) the existing chargers are often in use.. and you have to wait an hour to get one! No, that problem doesn't exist for gas, there is lots of capacity and waiting means a 1 minute delay, not a 20+ delay per person. These are real issues. Real problems. Pretending it will just be fine, because "reasons" which don't address the issue, is a problem. And it's lead to another stupidity. A lack of hybrids. Hybrids are perfect for the person that wants to charge at home, at the store, do local "stuff", and then when take longer trips once a week, use gas! It is the "bridge". It is the path to large scale adoption without backlash. It is the way to get even resistant people to adopt, and mostly use electric. It is the key to success, but people are often "all or none", and this is the doom of all good endeavors. Here's another example. If two magical things happened: 1) every person, today, magically had their car replaced with electric 2) all gas pumps were magically replaced with electric chargers Society would collapse. There is not enough transmission capability, to run those chargers. It would be like doubling the number of homes connected to the grid. Not only would there not be enough clean things (nuclear, solar, wind, hydro), and we'd have to scramble to start burning more things we shut down (coal, for example), it would also take years to build more power lines, transformers, to get more power to all those fast chargers. So yes, it's going to take 10 to 20 years to get everyone electric. Period. There's literally no other way. It isn't just about buying cars, but also about installing chargers, and creating additional power capacity and transformers, and transmission towers, and wire, and on and on and on and on. This is why hybrids are perfect. They reduce friction in society, whilst at the same time ensuring that if power is hard to get in certain regions, those same people can still use gas until things are fixed. This is why I am a big h2 proponent. It is an alternate path to electrification. It provides fast recharge, and it also can be produced great distances away, and transmitted by pipe. But anyhow. You're probably one of these people that think h2 is "hard to do", even though there are 3+ car manufacturers that have h2 with 600+km range, and green h2 can be brought online just as fast as any power plan we'll need as we expand electric car use.