Cars, it's electric! Do Do Do
- Thread starter A Potted Plant
- Start date
@Mahnken @THATmanMANNY im not making an argument against electric cars...I like them and I enjoy watching them improve.....I'm just pointing out how badly Elon is fucking over the electric car driving public. Thats like 30-50 cents per KWH.....what is electricity more special at a supercharging station? There is one at the rockaway mall near me....I can assure you its the same electricity thats powering the mall. Just not very helpful if the goal is society adopting electric cars......not that I think Elon actually gives a fuck about that part....Tesla made 8.3 BILLION off superchargers in 2023.
Part of the problem is in many states you can't legally sell power to electric cars based on the power consumed because then you're a utility selling power. So they have to do it time based and have to charge worst case scenario.
Unless someone is on road trips all the time, it hardly makes a dent and definitely offset by free chargers/home when not on road trips. And if doing long road trips a couple times a year I can see it being worth just renting a car and putting all those miles on a car that isn't yours.
We rented a car twice doing the NC/NJ/NC trip when it was a short visit as it was worth putting all those miles/abuse on a rental. And rented much larger vehicles than we normally drive so had that benefit.
I mean I road trip quite a bit to Vermont.....Just would bother me to spend $50,000, $60,000, etc on a car that is supposed to VASTLY reduce my fuel costs yet every trip it costs more to fuel than my ICE car....and takes WAY more time to refuel. This is not some issue of overcoming laws of physics....this is $$$$
THATmanMANNY
Well-Known Member
I only charged in upstate NY. Every charger was $0.39 per kwh. I mean this is capitalist country. I would never own an EV if I couldn't charge at home or a place at work.
I always said Tesla is all about selling power long term. Sell tesla's or not. That's where the continuous revenue is GLOBALLY. Then Elon can do whatever the F he wants with that money. Money, Power, Respect. Although the later is not guaranteed.
Edit - IMHO if you are traveling 8-10 hr distances with other people including family, spouse, and friends the extra 5-15 min to charge your car is in significant. IMHO.
You plug your car in and its mostly charged up while you do your things at rest stop VS gas then still need to stop into the rest stop bldg. 3hrs of seat time is pretty much my physical limit solo or not.
I always said Tesla is all about selling power long term. Sell tesla's or not. That's where the continuous revenue is GLOBALLY. Then Elon can do whatever the F he wants with that money. Money, Power, Respect. Although the later is not guaranteed.
Edit - IMHO if you are traveling 8-10 hr distances with other people including family, spouse, and friends the extra 5-15 min to charge your car is in significant. IMHO.
You plug your car in and its mostly charged up while you do your things at rest stop VS gas then still need to stop into the rest stop bldg. 3hrs of seat time is pretty much my physical limit solo or not.
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Captain Brainstorm
Well-Known Member
To me its purely a time thing, time is priceless. I don't want what's normally a 4.5hr trip to take 6-7hrs, or a 6hr trip to take 8hr, etc. Until electric vehicles take 5min. to charge, why would I pay $50-60k for something that's inferior to what already exists?
ok good, im not the only one who feels this way, iv been preaching that 5-10 minute charge time range to be the limit for more widespread adpotion (that and infrastructure, but who cares about that detail?)
Captain Brainstorm
Well-Known Member
I'm just citing my use case, which I have a feeling isn't different than many others in my situation. From a practical perspective, if a majority of your driving is local or falls under an hour, I can see how an electric car makes sense. They're fast, you can charge at home, etc. There's a use case there. For longer trips though, that's where it doesn't work for me. I'm loading up an SUV with a Thule box, bike racks, kids, luggage to the rafters, and driving 80-plus mph. No one wants to stop 2-3 times for 30min. to wait for a car to charge, in those situations its about getting there, not the journey. Then there are my fishing trips where its just me usually, but I drive 170-200 miles one way to places where there's usually no charging. Being able to charge in 5min. will actually make an electric car a car that I can use like an ICE car, which isn't where they are yet. The excessive weight is a whole other thing I have an issue with, but solve one issue at a time. Then there's the bigger question of what exactly are we solving for with all of this disruption? We're replacing one type of car with a much heavier version of another type that runs on a different type of fuel. To me it all feels like a robbing Peter to pay Paul type of thing.
And then there's that little detail of infrastructure. We're nowhere near anything that would be able to support the majority of the population driving electric, I don't even think we currently produce enough power for that.
my use case seems to be similar to yours, but with the extra limitation of my commute, i drive an hour each way to work so range on a dialy basis is an issue. I agree that they have a place as commuter cars for people with more reasonable commute distance and the ability to charge at home (the convenience factor is there), but they are not at a point right now where they can be a full on replacement for more traditional fuel sources.
and then on top of that i saw something (if i can find it ill link it here) that said there is not nearly enough accessible material supplies (i believe it is lithium) to make enough batteries to replace all the cars currently on the road today. While i am all for an alternative fuel source (hey we all know oil is going to run out eventually) i dont believe that batteries are the answer, especially if we cant generate enough electricity using alternative sources to charge the batteries up.
just dont think about this little detail, noone else seems to be worried about it, (we dont produce nearly enough electricity for this right now, and im not aware of any plans to improve the infrastructure either, probably because nuclear is the obvious choice and too many people are afraid of it)
Captain Brainstorm
Well-Known Member
Some of the best solutions we have ever come up with were when there was a major problem to solve. Antibiotics are a great example of that. What specific problem is electrifying a car solving? Purely from a performance perspective, yes, its hard to beat the acceleration of an electric car. I can see the upcoming Porsche 718 being amazing. The original Tesla roadster, the one that was basically an electric Lotus was cool, but these are basically toys. More range? More battery = more weight = more expense = longer charge time. Charge times of 5min. would be great, but lets be real, that's a long, long way off. You know its a long way off because no one is tripping over themselves to solve the infrastructure problem that we will not mention. I'm with you, this is a stop-gap to whatever technology will eventually replace ICE (which BTW, we're not running out of oil anytime soon). Right now, it just seems like a very complex solution to some vague and fuzzy problem, and complex solutions are rarely ever the right ones. Whatever happened to jet packs?
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GSTim
Formerly M3Tim
We also won't mention that over 50% of electricity is generated by natural gas and coal. So we are just adding in another inefficient conversion factor there.
Cars used to get 10mpg and weigh 3 tons. We had a 1970s new Yorker (or some land yacht).
Government mandates and subsidies improved the situation.
Same is happening now.
I agree that there are missions which do not fit the electric car right now.
But we need to go through this now, to get somewhere else later
The money and profit to the first 500mi charge in 10 minutes car will be incredible.
I thought the 100mi, charge overnight car is perfect for the most common use case.
Combine that and renting a mission specific car when a long road trip is needed.
Of course I'm riding around at 19mpg...
But when 6 people are comfortably going to dinner, so worth it. Otoh, could just Uber
Government mandates and subsidies improved the situation.
Same is happening now.
I agree that there are missions which do not fit the electric car right now.
But we need to go through this now, to get somewhere else later
The money and profit to the first 500mi charge in 10 minutes car will be incredible.
I thought the 100mi, charge overnight car is perfect for the most common use case.
Combine that and renting a mission specific car when a long road trip is needed.
Of course I'm riding around at 19mpg...
But when 6 people are comfortably going to dinner, so worth it. Otoh, could just Uber
Captain Brainstorm
Well-Known Member
Its always been in the auto industries interests to innovate, primarily to find efficiencies that eventually result in higher margins. The equation generally goes something like reducing vehicle weight = reduced material = simpler manufacturing = more margin. They've also been looking at alternative fuels for a very long time. There were the solar cars, BMW's first foray into hydrogen, and GM's EV that was ahead of its time. This current push towards EV's isn't the result of natural innovation per se, but a government mandate forcing the issue.
ehhh, Im not so sure I buy that....I think with the exception of the range and charging time issues, there are alot of advantages to electric cars....I mean they have certainly made it way past the novelty stage. And they are continuing to improve...but they need to be better still IMO.....I have a subaru outback....it is like a truck inside and can carry a ton of stuff, it is unstoppable in the snow with winter tires, its great on the highway for long drives, its not gigantic so you can park it anywhere......its a pretty good do all vehicle...cost me $24,000 fully loaded, 25k miles and a 7 year warranty....if im going to spend $50,000 on a new electric car....I want to be able to drive it back and forth to vermont like I do my ICE vehicle....sunday I left kingdom....made (1) 10min stop and was home in 5.5 hours.
There are many, many studies looking at total lifecycle emissions and energy conversion efficiencies and many, many articles discussing that comparison with respect to how the electricity is generated. It feels like this always comes up that "Nobody is talking about" regarding the power grid, or emissions from power generation, or sourcing of raw materials, or vehicle recycling etc, but in reality that information is readily available and widely discussed.
Captain Brainstorm
Well-Known Member
You already bought it. Tesla received billions in government subsidies, peoplesget $7500 in tax credits for buying an EV, $7.5B was budgeted in that inflation reduction bill for EV charging stations. How is this not government mandated, with our money?
SAM
Well-Known Member
Not that I agree with what Elon gets, but since when is a subsidy a mandate? The whole program is incentives and subsidies. All carrot. I'm sure Elon can give the money back if he doesn't like "government mandates".
Eh, that doesn't both me....ALL car companies are benefiting from mandates with our money.....ICE cars benefit MASSIVELY from the 20+ billion that we spend every year to subsidize the oil companies who also make billions in profits. They get massive tax breaks to open new factories to build ICE cars as well....Tariffs to reduce competition from countries such as China...our tax dollars to make roads, zoning laws to allow gas stations all over.....We hear mostly about electric car subsidies, but there would be no ICE cars without govt. subsidies.
Captain Brainstorm
Well-Known Member
Except in March the administration passed rule, which is basically a de facto mandate, that 2-thirds of new vehicles sold by 2032 be electric, but lets keep pretending that the government has no part in this, and its all consumer driven. And yea, lets see how much money Elon gives back, since he's in the business of giving money away.