2 ms·

I own an EV (Kia Niro 2024). My take: there is a lot of "it depends" on this. 1. EVs are much easier to charge than gas because it is passive. The article get

I own an EV (Kia Niro 2024). My take: there is a lot of "it depends" on this. 1. EVs are much easier to charge than gas because it is passive. The article gets it right: charging time is irrelevant when you're sleeping. 2. You can, in most cases, charge it at home. There are conditions: you'll need to have an available plug (some condos don't allow it) and you'd better have the car in a heated garage (it doesn't charge well when it's below -15 C / 5 F). 3. It is not expensive if you compare to gas cars in the same quality range and you factor in the long run economies. In North America, EVs are sold as luxury cars and should be compared with other gas luxury cars. 4. Under severe weather EVs are actually safer to drive than gas cars. Because they're more powerful, heavier and their weight is more evenly distributed they tend to be more stable than gas cars. 5. Truck drivers need 600 miles of uninterrupted drive repeatedly. Most normal people that attempt that will put their health/safety at risk if they need it frequently. 6. In the long run, they're better for the environment. Coupled with solar panels at home they're even a lot better.

mapt 2y ago
"you'd better have the car in a heated garage (it doesn't charge well when it's below -15 C / 5 F)." This I find interesting. Why doesn't the internal resistance of the battery raise the temperature sufficient that this doesn't matter? If there's some reason it couldn't, then why not add a few temperature-modulated resistive heaters?
mapt 2y ago
I think one of the big things we don't appreciate yet is fires. It's not so much "These things all explode" (they don't) or "wahh I can't put out the oxidized fire, so much flame, so little water, make it stop burning" (a disruption primarily, you just wait for it to burn out), as it is "The electrolyte in lithium ion batteries is actually lithium HEXAFLUOROPHOSPHATE, which burns in a runaway self-oxidized fire to produce hydrogen fluoride and clouds of phosphoric and hydrofluoric acid." Tunnel fires were already pretty deadly when we were just talking about hydrocarbon combustion, but hydrofluoric acid day at work is something a lot of chemists will call out sick for. Casual momentary contact can kill or maim you. LFP still uses fluorine chemistry, but at least it's a lot less likely to burn when abused than NMC. It's going to take one poorly ventilated tunnel fire to trigger a legal mandate to use LFP over NMC forms of lithium ion.

mapt 2y ago

"you'd better have the car in a heated garage (it doesn't charge well when it's below -15 C / 5 F)." This I find interesting. Why doesn't the internal resistance of the battery raise the temperature sufficient that this doesn't matter? If there's some reason it couldn't, then why not add a few temperature-modulated resistive heaters?

mapt 2y ago

I think one of the big things we don't appreciate yet is fires. It's not so much "These things all explode" (they don't) or "wahh I can't put out the oxidized fire, so much flame, so little water, make it stop burning" (a disruption primarily, you just wait for it to burn out), as it is "The electrolyte in lithium ion batteries is actually lithium HEXAFLUOROPHOSPHATE, which burns in a runaway self-oxidized fire to produce hydrogen fluoride and clouds of phosphoric and hydrofluoric acid." Tunnel fires were already pretty deadly when we were just talking about hydrocarbon combustion, but hydrofluoric acid day at work is something a lot of chemists will call out sick for. Casual momentary contact can kill or maim you. LFP still uses fluorine chemistry, but at least it's a lot less likely to burn when abused than NMC. It's going to take one poorly ventilated tunnel fire to trigger a legal mandate to use LFP over NMC forms of lithium ion.