3 ms·

I'm not going to dispute your numbers with diesel versus EV reliability, but I have to think the simplicity of an EV drivetrain will win that battle in the next

I'm not going to dispute your numbers with diesel versus EV reliability, but I have to think the simplicity of an EV drivetrain will win that battle in the next version or two.

fraserharris 2y ago
The reliability speaks to the technology immaturity. I agree with the inevitability of the EV drivetrain + charging off the existing distribution network being more reliable than competing technologies.
- formerly_proven 2y ago
  idk these sound like very specific problems they had. The chargers had an availability of only 23% because of a recurring issue with the power modules failing. In a later volume they also again attribute a lot of unavailability to the same chargers: > The BEB fleet operated at 66% availability with more than half of the total days related to retrofit of the charger cabling and programming by the OEM. I guess you could say this is due to immature technology but honestly I don't see 75% of HPC chargers being offline for maintenance at any given time. This is probably just bad luck with a vendor. If you look at the road calls the BEB is by far the most reliable one, causing one road call out of 45. It was also the cheapest per mile by a long stretch.
somat 2y ago
Based on personal experience my guess is that the unreliability would be in the battery not the drive train. Or more precisely put, batteries are a sort of black box they ether work or they don't work but either way you are not going to be able to open one up and find out why. that is, they are a high cost unrepairable item on the vehicle and this is a huge liability.
- BirdieNZ 2y ago
  Batteries aren't unrepairable; you wouldn't open one up in the middle of the road to try fix it but at the bus depot with enough volume of battery electric vehicles, they'll have reason to hire repair technicians that can refurbish and repair batteries.
  - AtlasBarfed 2y ago
    Obviously anything has a bunch of single points of failure, or catastrophic means of failure, but a battery isn't like "one engine". It's basically hundreds of little power modules wired in parallel, so an individual battery cell loss shouldn't bring down the whole pack. So a battery pack should actually be heavily redundant ... assuming the pack has enough modules for a loss of vehicle to get to some charging station.
rco8786 2y ago
It’s hard to imagine it not. And also kudos and crazy respect for all the thousands of engineers that poured their work into making combustion engines as efficient and reliable as they are. A true marvel of humanity, and something to be respected even as we leave it behind.
- psd1 2y ago
  I see your point, but at best you're getting 40% thermal efficiency with IC. It's not great.
  - rco8786 2y ago
    Relative to EVs it’s not. But relative to ICE engines from 50 years ago it’s great. EVs are obviously going to take over ICE, my only point is that we shouldn’t discount all the work and ingenuity that went into ICE engines simply because a disruptive technology came about.
  - cbmuser 2y ago
    No one cares about thermal efficiency. What matters is the economic efficiency.
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  And yet, how much earlier could we have had better solar panels and EVs? Certainly wind power was viable as soon as fiberglass was invented. The mass engineering should have also been directed at that which would have saved us a billion tons of carbon.

I'm not going to dispute your numbers with diesel versus EV reliability, but I have to think the simplicity of an EV drivetrain will win that battle in the next version or two.

fraserharris 2y ago

The reliability speaks to the technology immaturity. I agree with the inevitability of the EV drivetrain + charging off the existing distribution network being more reliable than competing technologies.

formerly_proven 2y ago
idk these sound like very specific problems they had. The chargers had an availability of only 23% because of a recurring issue with the power modules failing. In a later volume they also again attribute a lot of unavailability to the same chargers: > The BEB fleet operated at 66% availability with more than half of the total days related to retrofit of the charger cabling and programming by the OEM. I guess you could say this is due to immature technology but honestly I don't see 75% of HPC chargers being offline for maintenance at any given time. This is probably just bad luck with a vendor. If you look at the road calls the BEB is by far the most reliable one, causing one road call out of 45. It was also the cheapest per mile by a long stretch.

somat 2y ago

Based on personal experience my guess is that the unreliability would be in the battery not the drive train. Or more precisely put, batteries are a sort of black box they ether work or they don't work but either way you are not going to be able to open one up and find out why. that is, they are a high cost unrepairable item on the vehicle and this is a huge liability.

BirdieNZ 2y ago
Batteries aren't unrepairable; you wouldn't open one up in the middle of the road to try fix it but at the bus depot with enough volume of battery electric vehicles, they'll have reason to hire repair technicians that can refurbish and repair batteries.
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  Obviously anything has a bunch of single points of failure, or catastrophic means of failure, but a battery isn't like "one engine". It's basically hundreds of little power modules wired in parallel, so an individual battery cell loss shouldn't bring down the whole pack. So a battery pack should actually be heavily redundant ... assuming the pack has enough modules for a loss of vehicle to get to some charging station.

rco8786 2y ago

It’s hard to imagine it not. And also kudos and crazy respect for all the thousands of engineers that poured their work into making combustion engines as efficient and reliable as they are. A true marvel of humanity, and something to be respected even as we leave it behind.

psd1 2y ago
I see your point, but at best you're getting 40% thermal efficiency with IC. It's not great.
- rco8786 2y ago
  Relative to EVs it’s not. But relative to ICE engines from 50 years ago it’s great. EVs are obviously going to take over ICE, my only point is that we shouldn’t discount all the work and ingenuity that went into ICE engines simply because a disruptive technology came about.
- cbmuser 2y ago
  No one cares about thermal efficiency. What matters is the economic efficiency.
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
And yet, how much earlier could we have had better solar panels and EVs? Certainly wind power was viable as soon as fiberglass was invented. The mass engineering should have also been directed at that which would have saved us a billion tons of carbon.