4 ms·

Imagine if we were the other way around. Everyone was driving electric cars and someone was trying to get us on gas. I charge my car every night. You're tellin

by pkulak 14y ago

Imagine if we were the other way around. Everyone was driving electric cars and someone was trying to get us on gas. I charge my car every night. You're telling me I now have to drive to a "gas station" every time I need to recharge? And we need to ship gas all over the country now? And gas costs _how_ much!? And then I also have to bring it into the shop every few months to "change the oil"? And look at the thousands of moving parts! That thing is going to start breaking down after 5 years, tops. Look at all the scheduled maintenance? Shit, replacing just the timing belt will cost me thousands! And if I turn it on in my garage it will literally kill me and my entire family? No other product I own is nearly that dangerous. What a joke. I'm keeping my electric car.

devcpp 14y ago
Not really the same. You can take a dozen jerrycan of gas that will last you for a long time, and that does for the same price as the gas you'll buy at the station, which is precisely what people did before you could find gas stations every few miles. Not so for electricity: charging and taking 10 batteries with you on a trip is much more of a hassle and quite expensive. Fuel is really the deal-breaker for the buyers who won't go with an electric car until "fuel" is available everywhere. The other points are moot until this issue is solved.
- pkulak 14y ago
  My point is that you can find these terrible deal-breakers with every transition. It's not enough to just point them out.
- hellgas00 14y ago
  I believe these problems are already somewhat solved. The Chevy volt uses a hybrid system. Runs off electricity exclusively, with a small gas powered engine to charge the battery pack when need be. The backup engine can perform at its most efficient rate of rotation, and electric motors are so much more efficient than their combustion engine counterparts. As a Mech eng, I would be willing to bet that burning gas in a modern power-plant would be more efficient than using the fuel in a car. So much of the energy is lost in the form of heat, that lost heat could be harnessed. These problems are already addressed; it’s about what you require out of your car that should determine what type of car you need. I don't travel outside of the city. If I do I use public transit (GO tansit, live in Canada). The future will require trade-offs, there is no way that the status quo is sustainable
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    My guess is that the Volt is a stopgap, whereas Telsa are skating ahead of that puck. The Volt works for now for most people for most of their trips, which is awesome. However, you are still dealing with a whole host of moving parts and my guess is maintenance costs will be higher than either a pure EV or pure gas powered. Given the rate Tesla are going, I think the plug-in hybrid (or indeed any hybrid) is going to look fairly quaint in 5-10 years.
freehunter 14y ago
The difference is, the money spent on gas infrastructure is already spent, paid for, and profitable. This happened a long time ago. The infrastructure to allow the same number of cars to park for 30 minutes+ to recharge has not been invested in, not been paid for, and not been profitable for decades. If it had been, your argument would make sense. As reality stands, though, you're just furthering the case as to why electric cars are fighting a losing battle. I have to leave my car parked where? For how long?
- lancewiggs 14y ago
  The gasoline infrastructure is not entirely free from cost. It costs of lot of money to staff gas stations, to deliver the fuel and to maintain everything. The sites themselves are in prime locations and could be repurposed to higher value activity. The fuel tank trucks are cumbersome and dangerous, and the refineries more so. Charging your EV at home and work is already sufficient for, I assume, the vast majority of passenger miles. While long-distance road trips are a lot less common, they are cracked by electric cars when batteries can power for 8-10 (and higher) hours per day and we can use hotel/motels/carparks to recharge. We are not there yet, but the power density curves are pointing the right direction.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Electric may be the answer in the near future. I still don't believe it is now, but I do applaud companies and individuals for helping push that innovation forward. The electric market is in a catch-22: electric powered cars are expensive, and it will only get cheaper when more people start buying into it. I see cars like the Volt having more mass-market appeal for the next decade than the Tesla. I applaud Musk in everything he does, and the Tesla is a fine brand of high-end cars. But electric is, in my world, not a viable option at this time. Electric is great. Batteries suck. And they're not getting better fast enough. The world got used to filling a tank in 5 minutes and forgetting about it until they've run their 300-400 miles worth of fuel. I say electric is fighting a losing battle because the best arguments I see in this thread consist of "it only needs to charge overnight", "it's about on par with the cost of a gas guzzler", and "you can fill it most of the way in 30 minutes". Sure, it's progress. But good enough isn't good enough when it comes to battling an entrenched competitor. We're looking at a decade before electric is no longer a fringe thing (basically 20 years after the mass market introduction), and in between then there's no reason something like a Volt can't provide more benefit than a Tesla or a Leaf. You might only drive hundreds of miles once per year, but do you really want to shoehorn yourself into a car that makes this virtually impossible in exchange for mild relative inconvenience as opposed to no relative inconvenience?

by pkulak 14y ago

devcpp 14y ago

Not really the same. You can take a dozen jerrycan of gas that will last you for a long time, and that does for the same price as the gas you'll buy at the station, which is precisely what people did before you could find gas stations every few miles. Not so for electricity: charging and taking 10 batteries with you on a trip is much more of a hassle and quite expensive. Fuel is really the deal-breaker for the buyers who won't go with an electric car until "fuel" is available everywhere. The other points are moot until this issue is solved.

pkulak 14y ago
My point is that you can find these terrible deal-breakers with every transition. It's not enough to just point them out.
hellgas00 14y ago
I believe these problems are already somewhat solved. The Chevy volt uses a hybrid system. Runs off electricity exclusively, with a small gas powered engine to charge the battery pack when need be. The backup engine can perform at its most efficient rate of rotation, and electric motors are so much more efficient than their combustion engine counterparts. As a Mech eng, I would be willing to bet that burning gas in a modern power-plant would be more efficient than using the fuel in a car. So much of the energy is lost in the form of heat, that lost heat could be harnessed. These problems are already addressed; it’s about what you require out of your car that should determine what type of car you need. I don't travel outside of the city. If I do I use public transit (GO tansit, live in Canada). The future will require trade-offs, there is no way that the status quo is sustainable
- Lewisham 14y ago
  My guess is that the Volt is a stopgap, whereas Telsa are skating ahead of that puck. The Volt works for now for most people for most of their trips, which is awesome. However, you are still dealing with a whole host of moving parts and my guess is maintenance costs will be higher than either a pure EV or pure gas powered. Given the rate Tesla are going, I think the plug-in hybrid (or indeed any hybrid) is going to look fairly quaint in 5-10 years.

freehunter 14y ago

The difference is, the money spent on gas infrastructure is already spent, paid for, and profitable. This happened a long time ago. The infrastructure to allow the same number of cars to park for 30 minutes+ to recharge has not been invested in, not been paid for, and not been profitable for decades. If it had been, your argument would make sense. As reality stands, though, you're just furthering the case as to why electric cars are fighting a losing battle. I have to leave my car parked where? For how long?

lancewiggs 14y ago
The gasoline infrastructure is not entirely free from cost. It costs of lot of money to staff gas stations, to deliver the fuel and to maintain everything. The sites themselves are in prime locations and could be repurposed to higher value activity. The fuel tank trucks are cumbersome and dangerous, and the refineries more so. Charging your EV at home and work is already sufficient for, I assume, the vast majority of passenger miles. While long-distance road trips are a lot less common, they are cracked by electric cars when batteries can power for 8-10 (and higher) hours per day and we can use hotel/motels/carparks to recharge. We are not there yet, but the power density curves are pointing the right direction.
- freehunter 14y ago
  Electric may be the answer in the near future. I still don't believe it is now, but I do applaud companies and individuals for helping push that innovation forward. The electric market is in a catch-22: electric powered cars are expensive, and it will only get cheaper when more people start buying into it. I see cars like the Volt having more mass-market appeal for the next decade than the Tesla. I applaud Musk in everything he does, and the Tesla is a fine brand of high-end cars. But electric is, in my world, not a viable option at this time. Electric is great. Batteries suck. And they're not getting better fast enough. The world got used to filling a tank in 5 minutes and forgetting about it until they've run their 300-400 miles worth of fuel. I say electric is fighting a losing battle because the best arguments I see in this thread consist of "it only needs to charge overnight", "it's about on par with the cost of a gas guzzler", and "you can fill it most of the way in 30 minutes". Sure, it's progress. But good enough isn't good enough when it comes to battling an entrenched competitor. We're looking at a decade before electric is no longer a fringe thing (basically 20 years after the mass market introduction), and in between then there's no reason something like a Volt can't provide more benefit than a Tesla or a Leaf. You might only drive hundreds of miles once per year, but do you really want to shoehorn yourself into a car that makes this virtually impossible in exchange for mild relative inconvenience as opposed to no relative inconvenience?