So a lady tried to drive an EV from New Orleans to Chigago and back in less than four days with a car that had a battery life of 310 miles on a trip that was 2,000 miles long. She saved $100 in fuel but the fast chargers weren’t fast, the waits were inconvenient, and then there was the stress and uncertainty of just not knowing, and of wandering around unknown streets on foot, waiting for the car to charge, and trying to make appointments that failed. It took 12 hours to drive a 7.5 hour trip on the way there. But on the return as the weather got worse, so did the battery mileage. Just when you need it, it isn’t there… they ended up getting only 4 hours sleep on the last night so they could allow long enough to fit in the charges on the last leg.
Remember, you’re suffering so your great-grandchildren won’t have too.
Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart
The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend on a four-day road trip from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric vehicle (EV) that ended up as a disaster — one that left the author grateful for her ordinary car, even at today’s high gas price.
The Journal article, by Rachel Wolfe, was titled: “I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.” In it, the author described planning the journey, using the PlugShare app to map charging stations and estimate charging times, based on the relative strength of each public charging station. She noted that more charging stations should, in theory, be available in future, thanks to the federal government’s new infrastructure bill.
For now, however, long-distance travel by electric vehicle proved almost impossible, saving just $100 and costing hours. At several points, Wolfe recalled, the car nearly ran out of battery; they missed several appointments. They also had to take drastic steps to curb their use of power, such as unplugging their phones and turning down their windshield wipers.
h/t OldOzzie
A good lesson that EVs are, perhaps, good as a city runabout but little else.
High speed charging leads to high speed deterioration of the battery.
In fantasy land one could drive into a ‘filling’ station where swiftly the car’s battery would be unplugged and a new, fully charged one plugged in. But…this would require all batteries to be exactly the same and electricity readily available and affordable. Yeah, right!
I have always preferred a petrol engine which has the bug plus of producing beneficial carbon dioxide.
431
I wonder how many different EV battery types and shapes there currently are ?
Perhaps they could have them on small trailers so you only needed a particular plug/adaptor ?
Would make the car lighter.
130
If you were afraid of the cell phone battery radiation why are you not concerned of the same with a massive one generated under your vehicle?
184
People are not afraid of battery radiation because batteries don’t radiate, perhaps you meant RF radiation from the phone?
121
Do I smell a herring, type RED?
00
Mrs Ford says they are about to overtake Tesla with a new, batter by a factor of 10, battery. How is the resale on your year old EV looking?
But hope is not a strategy.
81
But hope is not a strategy.
Not according to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
Yellen: inflation to ‘remain high;’ hopes it’s ‘coming down’
00
Its not fantasy.
It has been done by several EV manufacturers…..Tesla were one of the first..
Still being progressed in the USA and Europe.
But the more different EV that are produced, the more unlikely it is to be practical.
45
yeah.. they do it with torch batteries.. so why not.
90
LOL
80
No they haven’t! there are dozens of different disposable batteries and untold varieties of of phone/computer rechargeables.
Hell would freeze over before Apple and Android would agree on a standard.
140
It’s already been done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k1tbf8muMc
SNL send-up of EVs. Unfortunately, the audio is out of sync.
20
A tubular magazine like a shotgun? Or a rotary like a tommy gun?
11
Sure but you just increased the total obatteries required from one million to one billion.
Silly idea
70
Just imagine how much fun a storage room at a garage, full of EV batteries, could be 🙂
151
One can only imagine the infrastructure required to house such a thing, of course in greeny fantasy land it would be stored in a tin shed from Bunnings with a free three burner bbq thrown in
80
Kaboom!
71
Now imagine one of those cells goes into thermal overload and triggers thermal overload inside its companion cells in the battery pack. Imagine this pile of batteries is the collection of electric cars in the underground carpark of your apartment block in the near future where petrol-powered cars are essentially outlawed.
The danger of electric car batteries bursting into flame and the difficulty in controlling and extinguishing these batteries has not really been addressed and may require millions of dollars to prevent runaway catastrophe if one burning car triggers the other car park cars to also burst into flame, and may not be extinguishable.
20
C’mon. If you want to travel the US you need a few propriety charging adaptors and phone apps. I doubt you could simply swipe a CC.
I’d rather herd cats than try to get manufacturers agree on a standard battery pack.
80
come on Chad …. the tesla battery exchange never worked and took hours instead of minutes and so tesla quietly closed the facility and stopped talking about it!!
Tesla claims a lack of demand but it just didn’t work either quickly or affordably.
Better Place in Israel also did the battery swap and they went bankrupt.
110
There are swappable battery trucks in operation already. Trucking and logistics companies have been importing them in from China.
113
so you have no problem with actual pollution just with ‘carbon pollution’, which has not even been shown to exist.
100
>”swappable battery trucks”
Conversion trial in Australia:
Janus unveils first electric truck for Australian east coast battery swap route
https://thedriven.io/2022/02/10/janus-unveils-first-electric-truck-for-australian-east-coast-battery-swap-route/
Interesting thread e.g.
Charging infrastructure is only a natural fit for long narrow corridors like Sydney-Brisbane. That is why Hyundai is trialing hydrogen in NZ:
NZ’s first hydrogen trucks hit the road
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/new-zealand-third-in-world-as-hydrogen-trucks-hit-the-asphalt
20
Note that Hyundai’s NZ hydrogen trucks are new – not conversions. The Janus electric trucks are conversions. This is an important distinction. The design battle is weight and aerodynamics but neither the Janus or Hyundai trucks are aerodynamic by design (see Solo AVT SD1 linked below):
From the Hyundai/Hiringa article previous:
Janus battery conversion: claimed 500-600 km range for a single trailer or 400-500km for a B-double. Seems questionable given new design battery powered Scania 250 km, Volvo 300 km. But Solo AVT SD1 claim 800 km, Tesla Semi claims 800 km.
See Scania, Volvo above – 250 km.
Analysis of long haul battery electric trucks in EU follows.
00
>”In the freight industry, where margins are tight and every kilogram counts, the weight of the truck remains an important number.”
Analysis of long haul battery electric trucks in EU
https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/20180725_T&E_Battery_Electric_Trucks_EU_FINAL.pdf
40 tonnes = 88185 lbs GVW (GVW < GVWR)
GVW & GVWR EXPLAINED
https://usdotdecals.com/blogs/news/gvw-gvwr-explained
Janus – Tesla Semi – Kenworth follows.
00
Janus – Tesla Semi – Kenworth
Semi-truck 300 gallons of diesel around 2100 pounds (0.95 t). Nearest Kenworth I can find has these specs:
Tesla Semi battery pack is roughly equal to the entire weight of a Kenworth T680 tractor.
Diesel load (0.95 t) reduces as fuel consumed, Janus battery pack excess weight (3.18 t below) stays exactly the same:
Pack density of a Tesla Model S of
540 kg as 85 kWh; so 500kWh = 3.18 tonnes.
Unused Janus battery about half the entire T680 tractor weight. Tesla Semi battery pack 6.4 t is 16% of EU 40 tonne GVW and 85.5% of entire W900 tractor weight.
Battery packs displace tonnes of payload – but payload is what pays.
10
>”Battery packs displace tonnes of payload – but payload is what pays”
Payload is the much neglected, but all important, issue in electric truck analyses including the ‘Analysis of long haul battery electric trucks in EU’ upthread. Only touched on and similarly in these 2 analyses:
Analysis of advanced battery-electric long haul trucks
https://omev.se/2019/09/26/analysis-of-advanced-battery-electric-long-haul-trucks/
Analysis of advanced battery-electric long haul trucks: batteries, performance, and economics
https://ucdavis.app.box.com/s/cfpoywahc2so21hogykiga6h8r9rppxe
Which was my assessment upthread. I’m sure owners will look much more carefully at payload than these analyses – payload matters more to them than to analysts.
00
Tesla did it with one car, once. After they’d qualified for a higher rate of subsidies,they didn’t need to do it again.
00
A Chinese manufacturer has a pilot program going where you drive your EV into a thing that looks like an auto carwash, and it changes over the battery whilst you wait. But…all the cars need to use the same battery type obviously, so it would require a commonality across manufactuers that presently does not exist. It could happen…eventually. As a small EV battery weighs in at circa 400kg, it is not a simple job. There are a lot of hidden problems and logistics with EV’s…fine for maybe City runabouts, but otherwise…I’m not interested.
I wonder what obtaining insurance is like for a shed full of charged EV batteries is like, or when the computerised battery removal/installation mechanics goes nuts.
40
Years ago there was an Israeli company trying to do the same, but I haven’t anything about it for a while. I think they were ahead of their time. But the idea was the same – eliminating charging by simply swapping out the battery pack. I suspect that due to so many different types of batteries with no standardisation, the problems were too many.
30
Apologies – just read 1.2.4. They went “bust”- not surprising.
20
Battery swap makes a huge amount of sense from performance and cost perspective, and would greatly reduce the cost of building out charging infrastructure (a lot of houses don’t have off-street parking as well as reducing total amount of batteries that need to be manufactured (not carrying around unnecessary spare capacity all the time) and reducing energy and performance wasted on carting around overly heavy batteries. Making batteries replaceable would increase life of cars and batteries (if one or other is damaged it doesn’t necessarily mean junking useful part) and there are a couple of companies are doing it. CATL (biggest battery company in world), Nio (also Chinese) and Ample in San Fran.
Switching batteries is faster than charging or filling a tank with petrol, eliminates range anxiety, and can potentially use different batteries for different performance cases in same car – cheaper longer life but shorter range LIPO and perhaps one or more of the battery bays being left empty for around town, higher energy density more expensive NMC lithium for longest range, and even swappable fuel burning range extenders for towing trailers or longer trips. Once batteries are degraded they can also have high residual value as home or grid energy storage, and can be used for grid load levelling when stored in battery swap stations as well as charging up when there is power to spare on grid (eg middle of day for PV dominant grid, or overnight for fossil/hydro/nuclear baseload dominated grid).
The benefits are so compelling that it seems inevitable that it will come to the market in a big way eventually – as it should eventually be lower cost to the consumer. Lipo batteries in particular can last for many 1000’s of cycles, far more than life of a vehicle, so swappable batteries should be cheaper than permanently integrated.
212
The other huge factor that will drive battery swap is that electricity costs about 1/3rd as much at wholesale level (eg 0.1/kWh) as at home (eg 0.3/kWh). So ‘charging’ at a battery swap sub-station will (long term) be far cheaper than charging at home.
28
Neato! But let me get this straight… at present the never-ending whinge is that Big Gubmint hasn’t provided enough charging infrastructure for the privileged 1% to charge their mobile virtue signals. Yet, the proposal being discussed here now is that we move on from mere chargers and instead build 10’s of thousands of robotic battery swap facilities?
The laughs never end!
100
The roadhouse just north of Gosford on the F3 sometimes has to handle 100+ cars per hour.
Imagine the huge stocks of batteries needed, and the forklifts or other infrastructure needed to do that sort of change-over.
Its just sheer lunacy. !
101
Foyle. The amount of delusional waffle and false logic you have crammed into so few words is impressive.
81
BIG plus, that should be of course.
50
“BIG plus, that should be of course.”
I just assumed you were from NZ 😉
80
at least the battery didn’t spontaneously combust
90
Another way to do it of course would be to keep a 1000-mile long extension cord plugged into the vehicle for the whole trip 😀.
81
think i found another project for the RET scheme: land sailing.
just imagine sailing past those EV drivers as they wait for their cars to recharge.
120
EVs already create travel restrictions, but as the electricity grid grinds to a halt then we can expect enforced travel restrictions to save energy usage. This is all about control and removing hydrocarbons is the best way to control everyone.
161
Serge,
You almost got it right. The control is a Marxist ideology but has nothing to do with removing hydrocarbons. It’s about total control of everyone but controlling ALL energy.
The Marxist/ Communists of yesteryear tried control everyone thru control of Labour, resources, land.
That’s complicated & didn’t deliver results, in fact the whole system as we know self destructed.
By controlling only energy will deliver the results they seek without all the complications of government having to be full time policemen.
With today’s technology everyone can be tracked & denied energy , money ( Trudeau’s already proved that point). They’ll be able to control your speed in your EV or even switch it off at will. Remember “vaccination passports” will also control you. Their ambitions to control everyone are endless!!!
131
I’m pretty sure during the 2019 Australian federal election campaign, Bill Shorten claimed EV’s would very soon come with batteries that could be charged in 20 minutes. He was batting away criticism that EV’s would be impractical in Australia. I haven’t heard of anything approaching that charging time since.
90
by 1990 no child will be living in poverty.
by 2019 no EV will take longer than 20 minutes to charge.
180
Not quite up to Bills expectations, but 26 mins is not far off ..
https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/11/Table-Model3-V3-Supercharging-Time.jpg
But 20 mins would be possible if a EV with a smaller battery was used, or one of the latest 350kW chargers.
Also few people ever need a 100% recharge, usually the 10-80% time is more relevant.
00
I definitely want a law requiring all congresspeople to have to drive from their districts to capitols in EVs. As a quorum would never arrive, there would be no new legislation! As a side benefit, while trying to find charging stations, some of these folks might meet some of their constituents out in the real world.
160
Check out a recent post at Anthony’s, on a Michigan Senator.
30
Mr. Vlad: I saw the story and couldn’t resist. She focused on one positive item (didn’t have to buy gas at LGB prices) and didn’t mention any downside at all. The picture of Deb (sorry, Sen. Deb) Stabenow indicated that a charging layover of 8 hours or so was a feature- she routinely spends 9 hours in hair/makeup before going out!
00
Yellen about stupidity
The venerable office of Secretary of the Treasury goes back to Alexander Hamilton. Looking over the roster of former Secretaries, one can observe that it has rarely been held by lightweights or hacks. Janet Yellen makes a mockery of the office. She degrades the office in performing its responsibilities poorly and ranging far afield to parrot the shibboleths and follies of the Biden administration like a Stalinist apparatchik.
Yesterday Yellen testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the administration’s 2023 budget. C-SPAN has posted video of the entire hearing here, the committee here, Yahoo Finance here (on YouTube). Let us take a look at two clips.
Comrade Janet is barking mad in apparatchik city.
In a Senate hearing Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says “the critical thing is we become more dependent on the wind and the sun”
A good reminder that they CHOSE this transition, and the pain is the point. pic.twitter.com/klCfeRztMI
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 7, 2022
70
A couple of years ago the youtuber “CGP Grey” took a Tesla across “the loneliest road” in Nevada. It’s not on Tesla’s charger network, but he was able to make do by using Tesla’s adapters and charging at RV parks. It took him about 14 hours per charge doing it that way, though, so he was only able to travel a single charge worth per day, and the trip from Reno to southern Utah took him 3 days as a result, and there were still scares for RV parks not appearing to have a port that his adapters would work in and range anxiety on his final day.
He was doing it just to see if he could, so I suppose as a proof of concept it succeeded, but he noted that it wasn’t a trip he’d ever plan to make if he wasn’t “doing it for content” and concluded that it wasn’t a great experience for him either.
Vid’s kinda long at 50 minutes, but I found myself enjoying the whole thing — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_naDg-guomA
80
Mr. 99: Based on observation, I conclude that virtually every EVERY EV “concept” or “content” trip goes awry, but activists will ignore all that and tell you how great it was. EV proponents are utterly blind to any downside.
10
In whose world is a drive from NO to Chicago a 7.5 hour drive. At any reasonable driving speed, with absolutely no stops, it would be close to a 20 hour drive. Maybe 18 but longer if you take the longer route through Nashville. The drive to Louisville is close to 14 hours + pit stops. I’ve made it several times. Then there is a minimum of 5 hours to Chicago from there. I’m skeptical of this story.
21
Noticed that as well, and all I can figure is a possible typo: a leading ‘one’ might be missing.
A VERY long time ago, my best friend in college and I did a trip where we drove a vehicle from Atlanta, Georgia; the goal was Salt Lake City, Utah (we were finishing our senior year there). With one sleeping stop, a bit of sightseeing in St. Louis (Gateway Arch), we spent our second night of the trip in Flager, Colorado. Exactly 36 clock hours from Atlanta to Flagler. We then spent seven days criss-crossing Colorado, going back-and-forth, camping here, and there, and everywhere, before meandering into the Greater Salt Lake Metroplex, a couple of days before the Fall Semester started.
We basically pushed hard, but this was the era of the ‘double-nickle’ speed limit (U.S. Customary measurement system, approximately 88 kilomtres per hour).
Likely seven days from Atlanta to Flagler in an electric vehicle. I’m guessing … … …
40
Good catch Donk..
“Half the journey” (1000miles ?) in 7.5 hours would need an average of 133+ mph !
Even the stated actual 12 hrs, would mean averaging over 83 mph !…
That would be some achievement,
…… and a qualifier for the “Cannonball”
20
Surely a major problem would be that your low usage well looked after battery might be replaced by a much older one that had experienced numerous damaging fast charges?
80
Yes, you’ve just bought your new brand-new electric car with its brand new electric battery and the next you take it on a long drive. You rock up to the battery-exchange station and your new battery is then replaced with a three year old ‘standard’ battery that has had 675 fast charges with the associated degradation in charge capacity.
You might now not have enough power to drive your new car straight back home with this degraded swap battery.
I guess that means you won’t own the battery in your car but will have to rent/lease the battery even if you own the car itself. Nobody would buy a new battery and swap it out under this swap scheme.
50
I drive an EV. Its brilliant, a 15 minute recharge at a fast charger and I’m back up to 80%. There is seldom a queue waiting. I’ve never tried to drive 2000 miles through the rural US, I imagine that would be quite frustrating. LA to Seattle or NY to DC would be much more straightforward.
212
A report you should read.
https://www.cfact.org/2022/06/07/is-it-ethical-to-purchase-a-lithium-battery-powered-ev/
Although we all know that “ethics” is at the very bottom of your list of considerations.
122
‘There is seldom a queue waiting’ – I suspect that statement might be wishful thinking when they reach their goal of 100% EV ownership……..
90
“‘There is seldom a queue waiting’’
Shows how few people have been sucked in by the hype. !
70
It amuses me when I travel north or south on the motorway from my Mid Coast NSW home to count the number of EV recharging at the near highway recharging stations, most often none and sometimes one and even two from time to time, and both stations have six recharge points.
Obviously the number of EV travelling country roads are a tiny fraction of the ICEV fleet number.
Fair enough, EV are best suited to city and suburban driving conditions, but even the cheapest is double the price of the same car with a petrol engine.
No wonder Henry did so well when he released his Model T Ford that could carry spare cans of petrol for out of town trips.
61
My wife’s sister lives 510 kms away. No sane person would contemplate going there in an EV. There is a 350 km stretch with just a roadhouse working off a genny halfway. If one were to stay o/night [hotel expense] at the start of this leg and top up your LONG range EV you would make it without airconditioning but you would then need to park your car and use your host’s while you built up a 100% charge for the return home, with another o/night stay on the way.
Of course you would hire a nice Beemer that you otherwise could not afford for the trip.
BTW I was cruising that stretch at 150 in my V6. You would need the patience of Jove to do it at 100 in the heat with no aircon.
40
A while ago I read a story written by a Tesla EV owner who drove it around Australia using Highway One, and one of the points repeated was that 80 KMH was the highest speed recommended to maximise range. Imagine the Road Trains with three or four trailers trying to maintain cruising speed if they had to slow down and then build up speed to overtake, not happy drivers.
The driver also pointed out that recharging in remote areas was diesel generator supply and that most often he could only access motel or caravan park standard power points and recharging took many hours.
I wondered about the condition of the battery being charged to maximum against the recommendation of EV manufacturers to limit recharges to 80 per cent to protect the battery pack.
30
‘There is seldom a queue waiting’
That’s now in NZ. Here’s the future:
The half-mile electric car charging queue in the US
https://joannenova.com.au/2019/12/the-half-mile-car-charging-queue-in-the-us/
I saw a Leaf parked in a charger spot at the supermarket the other day – except wasn’t plugged in (charger near access in may explain).
10
“LA to Seattle or NY to DC would be much more straightforward”
Or just getting across town in a NZ commute nowadays.
Start – stop – start – stop …stop…
I do see an EV niche for start-stop (and no exhaust emissions in town start or stop). But then a small ICE town car for commuting (e.g. Suzuki Ignis) costs a whole lot less to begin with, minimal exhaust, and stuff all to run too. Subsidies change the equation however:
Norway’s Electric Vehicle Market – IER
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/norways-electric-vehicle-market/
So the equation becomes:
Wealth + subsidies = living the green dream.
20
Norway’s EVs are subsidised almost totally from the export of oil. !
00
What’s it like knowing you are driving a car mostly powered by COAL and GAS?
00
OT..
Oh no…. now its after the tomato sauce
And this one is REALLY REALLY BAD !!
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/06/08/ketchup-at-risk-squeeks-telegraph/
31
OT.. India open up 100 dormant coal mines.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/08/india-reopens-100-coal-mines/
51
And buying oil from Russia, selling refined product to USA and EU.. well done India 😉
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/06/08/india-is-buying-up-cheap-sanctioned-russian-oil-and-selling-it-to-the-u-s-and-e-u-at-huge-profits/
42
I though Americans loved entrepreneurs taking advantage by fair means or foul.
00
A huge point buried in the article is that a lot of “fast chargers” aren’t. The term covers a very wide power range from over 300 whatever’s way down to around 50 (I forget the units). Presumably the charge time is inversely proportional to the power.
120
The units are kW. You can only get 24 out of a standard outlet in Oz and less in the US with 110V supply.
Most Tesla Superchargers can now recharge up to 200 miles of range in 15 minutes, depending on the charge rate. Superchargers also range from charging speeds of 90 kW to 250 kW, depending on the station.
Cheers David.
02
Hanrahan, I think you meant 2.4KW from a 10A outlet. 3.6KW if it is a 15A.
21
“ kW” would be the units most commonly used for charger power rating.
20
Bumped from Tuesday Open
More democrat logic
“Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Has her EV, so Gasoline Prices Don’t Matter”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/07/sen-debbie-stabenow-d-mi-has-her-ev-so-gasoline-prices-dont-matter/
40
Just imagine their crazy future bottlenecks if/when there are millions of these TOXIC disasters on the road and you have very bad driving conditions across the US for a week or so?
How would that work for extremely cold weather or heatwaves and don’t forget they’d have to be charged by monster new wind and solar farms that would have to be replaced every 20 years.
Try planning a trip and coping with those conditions a number of times every year.
Of course none of this would make the slightest difference to the temp or weather or climate or SLR or polar bears or Arctic / Antarctic ice or wild fires or floods or droughts or the lack of a HOT spot or ????
Meanwhile China intends to build hundreds of new coal power stns for decades and ditto India and all the “other developing countries”.
When will the OECD countries WAKE UP to this corr-ption and fra-d?
71
GM CEO and an awkward question re EV’s
“We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/06/08/we-dont-need-no-flaming-sparky-cars-88/
30
So is it ethical to own a TOXIC EV? Here’s a quote from the CFACT article and link. Please read it and THINK for yourself.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/08/is-it-ethical-to-purchase-an-ev-lithium-battery-powered-vehicle/
“For an oil well, where 100 percent organic material is pumped out of the ground, taking up around 500 to 1000 square feet. Then it flows in pipelines safely transporting the oil to refineries to be manufactured into usable oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products for society, and into transportation fuels needed by the world’s heavy-weight and long-range infrastructures of aviation, merchant ships, cruise ships, and militaries.
For just one lithium supply mine where entire mountains are eliminated. Each mine usually consists of thirty-five to forty humongous 797 Caterpillar haul trucks along with hundreds of other large equipment. Each 797 uses around half a million gallons of diesel a year. So, with an inventory of just thirty-five the haul trucks alone are using 17.5 million gallons of fuel a year for just one lithium site.
There is virtually no existing transparency of the environmental degradation and the human rights abuses occurring in developing countries with yellow, brown, and black skinned people. Both human rights abuses and environmental degradation are directly connected to the mining for the exotic minerals and metals that are required to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries”.
92
Seriously Neville.!!
We all know that “ethics” is an anathema to the AGW and renewable crowd. !
52
In Wagga Wagga an EV was to be driven to Sydney and back to demonstrate the wisdom of EV purhase(s) for the shire.
What happened?
40
That was 3 years ago, and it was the Mayor of Wagga.
He made it, with a few 1/2 hour recharge stops, over 3 days !
I dont know if he needed 3 days for business etc, but i am sure it could be a 1 day return trip if just for a meeting etc……but not in an EV !
https://thedriven.io/2019/10/23/wagga-mayor-electric-vehicle-road-trip/
50
Thans or that Chad. I think it was a failure. 3 days was what I expected as a proof of failure. They mention other councillors should have gone with him. That increase in mass would have been a huge impact on range and charging. No heating or cooling required. Daylight leaves lights off. Clearly a problem 3 days. Petrol could have been done in 1 day with 3 passengers, heating and or cooling and night driving. That saves 2 nights accommadation. Wagga is a large shire. My suburban counil went hybrid. Many breakdowns and RACV could not fix and had to arrange towing. The costs forced them back o IAC.
42
Is there a typo there? Hybrids are very reliable.
11
There are a few typos H.
“Thanks for and ICE.” Internal Combustion Engine. This ‘typing’ is point and shoot and I do better with a 1 finger keyboard.
Hybrids are better than EV. My council was earlier as the cars have been replaced.
This council now has rainbow flags and mandatry vaccination for council venues, even libraries and that s descrimination.
Following a petition some presented unmasked at a council site. Police served summons for failure to be wearing a mask even on people wo can prove they were not at the location.
My uncles fought and some died to prevent this authoritarianism.
11
During 2018 I drove onto the motorway at Goulburn NSW and as my 4WD left the slip lane a Tesla S EV driver decided to tailgate and take advantage of my vehicles slipstream. I set cruise control at a genuine 110 KMH which was the road speed limit, that being 117 KMH speedometer reading. After following for maybe 15 to 20 minutes the EV began to slow down and soon became a red dot far behind my vehicle.
I think the computer battery monitoring system warned him that loss of energy was becoming a problem with the next recharging station some distance ahead.
That would really annoy me when I am travelling long distances on country roads.
41
If I lived in a city with short commutes or very good public transport, maybe an EV might be an option. But why? They cost heaps more and I could do the same with a very small capacity engine ICE vehicle or hybrid. Or just use one of those car share vehicles – eg GoGet. I know I’m not saving the planet by driving an EV, so what’s the point. I would only dare using an EV on a longer trip if the trip was under 200km and I knew for sure there was a decent charger at the other end.
50
Her saving on fuel cost deducted from the premium price she paid for the EV probably indicates a break even point of several years into the future before she can claim to be saving money.
Much pain for little gain.
30
And after breaking even next could be battery pack replacement expenses to recover.
Or trade-in the EV and have it devalued by the condition of the battery pack.
10
It was a rental EV..
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Had a chat to a Tesla driver the other day. What’s his car like etc. He said the most annoying thing, is having to toot the horn a lot to warn people and dogs that he is approaching.
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I have warned my son that if I ever need a electric mobility scooter I intend to have a sound system installed with various sound tracks: V8 engine, burnouts, skidding tyres, etc.
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I would say that EV owners are the new vegans, except that vegans have a point about cruelty to animals. EV owners have no point to make at all.
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I think there is an illusion that it will all get better when there are more charging points. So what happens when people respond by buying more battery cars? Yep, back to square one, rinse and repeat. And as we know on here, there will never be enough minerals, metals or electricity to switch to battery powered transport. As noted by a commenter above, battery cars can work around built up areas and cities but need to be much cheaper and more like an improved golf cart – look at the new Citroen. The last time there were battery cars it was in response to smog problems in cities, especially in California. But engines are much cleaner now than they were in the 70s.
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