I have no doubts the cost to run and charge an EV will be on par with current gas cars, if not more. It will be quite expensive to go green. As for the grids...can imagine 150 million households with chargers (maybe two), as well as electric furnaces, then charge the lawnmowers, snowblowers, E bikes etc. At some point that the municipalities start adding taxes, surcharges, battery recycling fees.

 

Nope, as @EZZ pointed out the prototype has already been made and its available to order in the Plaid+ later this year. It's the same battery going in the CyberTruck (an updated design is being released soon) at the end of this year/early next year as well as the long delayed semi truck. It's definitely coming a lot sooner than you stated.

 

No other American city is quite like NYC, other cities have more widely available parking, more cars, etc. You also fail to realize that car ownership as we know it may very well change and people in urban areas may not own cars the way that they do now which will lessen the need for them to be housed and charged within cities.

Long haul trucks and city busses and livery vehicles do not drive around the clock. Truck drivers have to stop and rest a certain number of hours, bus schedules are dramatically limited for many hours a night or stopped entirely, same as livery services. Plenty of downtime where those vehicles are parked and can be recharged. Having EV cars be mainstream doesn't mean those vehicles have to be EV either.

Thats your NYC focus again. Unlike in NYC, in DC for instance our public transit doesnt run all night. Our subways close at midnight and start at 5 AM on weekdays, 7 or 8 on weekends, Metrobus service ends around midnight. More cities are like DC than are like NYC.

We will absolutely have mainstream EVs in our lifetime.

 

4680 cell, that's really tough to predict when it will be made in volume it's a very different way of making a battery so I would tend to expect delays. Cybertruck will look very similar to the prototype I'm quite sure of this, the no paint high strength exoskeleton is fundamental so it either fails completely and never gets released or will be essentially what we've been shown.

On EV adoption some have quite the blind spot and short term memory. Consider where we were 10 years ago with electric vehicles and compare that to a 10 year old petrol car. The gas burner is mostly the same, EVs are advancing much faster. As for the grid not being able to handle the increased load I don't see this as a problem at all, if there is demand there will be investment to increase supply. Heck if we took even 25% of subsidies given to the oil industry and diverted it to improving the grid that alone would make a big difference.

The "half measure" hybrid has always been a stepping stone technology what disappoints me greatly is how Toyota let the tech stagnate. They should have moved to plug-in versions much faster, in fact they should already be well into going full EV.

The fact people instantly point to Tesla when talking about EVs is a double edge sword (for Tesla) but also very telling.

 

It definitely will look very similar, however it is being updated - dimensions/features:

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/2...rtruck-mid.htm

 

Doesn't say in that article but from what I've read it will be ~3% smaller that seems like way down on the list of things Tesla has to worry about. Speaking of worrying, it must be extremely frustrating for Tesla not being able to build the vehicles they want, and not being able to build enough of them. In other words from their perceptive the Gigafactory's can't be built fast enough.

On autonomous driving, I'm amazed how few people seem to understand what Tesla is trying to do vs. everyone else. Whether Tesla succeeds is another story, I think they will but several years after Elon says they will. Which is normal, there is reality and there is Elon time.

 

Tesla is the biggest disruptor to the auto industry in the last 50 years. They've proven an alternative energy is viable to power our transportation future and pursuing the obsolescence of driving itself. They've also taken a completely different business model vs. the norm in the industry and made it successful. My only maintenance item I have to worry about is my in cabin air filter and I can order the replacement on my phone, through my app, and the mobile service guy will come and replace it for you for $35. I've owned some sort of Lexus vehicle for the past 13 years and my Tesla has been a far more convenient experience given the lack of maintenance and total ownership costs.

The grid argument will be region specific because every region has a vastly different situation. For example, electricity will never ever exceed what I paid for fuel in my ICE. Not even remotely close as my solar production far exceeds my usage currently. There is a delicate balance between what they can charge, and the incentive to get solar so pricing is fixed by economics. I'm sure many other states will be in the same situation while others will have vastly different issues.

 

Speaking of solar, notice how little we talk about how quickly the cost is dropping? If it hasn't already it will soon be the cheapest form of energy, the giant fly in the ointment is we don't have a way to store it all. Not yet. But why can't every home have solar roof tiles and charge their own vehicle. Doesn't seem like we are that far off from this being 100% viable.

And yes I realize that use case doesn't work for everyone.
I can't think of another company that changed an entire industry so quickly. Maybe Apple?

 

The honest answer to this question, is I'd navigate to a supercharger. At such a low SoC, charging is very rapid, and 50 miles could be had in short time. I get this wouldn't be as convenient as filling a tank of gas at the nearest corner, but an inconvenient situation, is inconvenient. On the list of reasons I wouldn't advise someone to buy an EV, this would be pretty low, similar to how I wouldn't deter someone from buying an ICE vehicle, just because they could possibly run out of gas. Other factors would come into play, first.

In my real-world experience, though, because I can charge at home and start each day at max range, it's rare that I'm even at 30% after a day's worth of driving. So the more realistic scenario, is I'm likely to have taken action before I get to 5%, the same way I would in a gas car before the fuel light illuminates. As you live with any vehicle, you learn the nuances and get better at adjusting for these situations. I plan for fuel stops differently in my 8 cylinder, than I do in the 4, just as I plan differently in the EV.

While I'm discussing real-world, and to sort of counter your hypothetical, such a situation is actually more likely in my ICE vehicles, since the only time I can refuel, is if I deviate from something I'd rather be doing. Specifically, I don't stop at a gas station every chance I get, because it's inconvenient, whereas the EV can potentially be topped-off anywhere it's available, while parked. In effect, I'm much more likely to be caught in a low fuel situation (fuel light on), than a low SoC (5%). The current EV situation is not an option for everyone, which isn't too different from the fact that owning a car isn't for everyone, but I also don't think that needs to be the argument (not that you are specifically stating this, I actually like your threads). With time, infrastructure will improve, prices will come down, and more players will enter the game. Dive in when ready.

Yes, I think electric grids can support EV adoption, especially since EVs still make up a relatively small number of actual roadgoing vehicles, and it will be another decade or more before we even see 50% (to pull a number) of cars on the road that are BEVs. It's also not a challenge we haven't met before. Housing, gas stations, all sorts of commercial developments etc. also rely on electricity, and we rarely see anyone question whether or not the grid can handle it, every time a new development goes up. That the Texas situation was so mismanaged, is an argument and opportunity to improve and build for the future, not a reason to stay where we are and wait for it to happen, again.

Also, if you have no power, how do you pump gas or do much else in modern society? That's not even a specific EV question, many people live in houses and cities that are heavily reliant on electricity, despite the fact that power can go out. The answer isn't to cease electrification of our cities, because we understand the pros outweigh the cons. Likewise, EVs aren't a magic bullet, and we're still going to need fossil fuels for decades to come, but electrification opens up the possibility of more localized energy production and a variety of other pros, which is a good thing-- even when generating power using fossil fuels, electrification is more efficient. You raise the point of electricity costs and taxes, but that's not unique, and we've seen sharp fluctuations in gas prices for decades, based on everything from local events and disasters, to geo-political happenings in many parts of the world. Gas taxes aren't properly adjusted, because it's political suicide to do so, and depending on where you live, poor road infrastructure can be the result. In other words, the current situation already represents most of your concerns, and in general, it's still functional, mainly because it's the existing paradigm, but it has worse pitfalls, with less potential to fix them...and is ultimately non-sustainable.

It's not so much the garage, it's access to a nearby outlet of some type. It's not abnormal for people to park and plug in from their driveway (since it's private property and there isn't heavy foot-traffic), as well as lots at work, the grocery, malls, etc., all of which can be used in the elements. Parking inside of a garage is just a layer of convenience, whether you own a gas or electric car.

Quote:

People trash everything that doesn't belong to them, thus my analogy with the shopping carts.

It comes with the territory, but it's not a reason to avoid building public infrastructure. If anything, EVs allow more private "refueling" options than gas.

Meanwhile, there are people who drive away from the fuel pump, with the nozzle still attached to the car. Or the fact that some people leave the car on while filling up. One could make the argument that we either shouldn't let people pump their own gas (like some states), or rethink fueling stations. There's no shortage of scary scenarios to dream up with ICE vehicles, either, from having them catch fire at a rate higher than EVs, to what happens if you run one too long in a closed space by accident. I think there are valid concerns, for sure, but a number of these scenarios are so exaggerated, they take away from more legitimate criticisms.

 

^^ Fantastic post.

 

A really important point is, I dont see a ton of people who have bought EVs going back to ICE cars because they can't handle the charging situation in their EV car. That leads you to believe its a lot easier to navigate than we think.

 

Hopefully one doesn’t have to update their home charger every few years.

 

Its an appliance like everything else, will need to be updated over time. Better, faster ones will come out, etc.

 

Not really. Most people just put in a 240V socket and use their charger that comes with the car. Also, if you have something like a Tesla wall charger, it should outlast the car because it will never get faster as it's limited by the output of the house.

 

Very well said Steve. I can never ever go back to an ICE car. It's the old adage - once in a threesome, anything less is boring and not interesting. lol