Electric vehicle war, is gas soon to be toast?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Why do all of these companies insist on creating butt ugly interiors for their EVs? If I wanted something that looks like a Tesla that's what I would buy, otherwise just give me your standard interior

Toyota wanted the interior to match the exterior. But ya, just make them look normal.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

Like the Rav4 Prime. I've only ever seen one in person

Pretty much all the production, limited such as it is, is going to the US coasts. (Particularly the west coast.)

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

For me personally the biggest range issue is being able to go to Lake Louise and back in the winter, without needing to worry about charging at the hill or on the way home.

If I'm going to Edmonton or something, finding a quick charger isn't the end of the world unless I was in a real rush. A road trip to the coast could be slightly more annoying, because I don't tend to like to stop much. Also visiting people might get awkward while traveling...(can I, uh, bum a charge?)

For the vast majority of people, what you've listed as potential range issues are so far out of a typical use case that it probably shouldn't be driving a purchasing decision. How many people are doing a 1.5-3 hour drive to a ski hill every weekend in the winter? Not a huge amount. For everyone else who does it a couple times a year, that's not enough to really be the reason you avoid one. Same with driving to the coast. For most people that'll be once a year at most.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

For the vast majority of people, what you've listed as potential range issues are so far out of a typical use case that it probably shouldn't be driving a purchasing decision. How many people are doing a 1.5-3 hour drive to a ski hill every weekend in the winter? Not a huge amount. For everyone else who does it a couple times a year, that's not enough to really be the reason you avoid one. Same with driving to the coast. For most people that'll be once a year at most.

For most skiers that's almost every weekend. Like I said, those are my reasons at this point, I didn't mean to apply it to everyone. If I commuted by car downtown to work every day I'd probably have one by now (as one of 2 vehicles) because they make so much sense for that. And it would probably be the Bolt.

[para transit fellow]

https://twitter.com/AlberteBouso/sta...fauyGMfHA&s=19

Ev range improvement by Mercedes

[CASe333]

Originally Posted by photon

Even where there is infrastructure you point out one of the biggest issues still.. sure the car says it's capable of some level, and the charger says it can deliver some level, but if you're only getting 70kW instead of 150kW the question is WHY, and the technology doesn't tell you.

That should be instantly visible to the consumer. I should know if I'm charging slower because the battery is cold.. or because the charging curve is ramping up.. or because the charger isn't able to provide what it says it can..

Leaving it a mystery makes it very frustrating for people who have to try different things to figure it out themselves. Not many people enjoy debugging their car.

You are right but there is more info available from the charger and car than a normal gas fill up and usually it's a charging station problem at this point. Thank goodness for the app that has user feedback for each charging site. I would have been freaking out about only pulling a 40kW charge at a "350kW" station but quickly saw it was the norm. Anyone can download the plugShare app and check out non-Tesla charging locations and user feedback around them or wherever. I would recommend it before buying an EV just to see the local charging infrastructure even though its not really important since you almost always charge at home.

Some other issues with the charging infrastructure I've noticed:

1). When something goes wrong charging who is liable? For example, at one location at UVIC I've read two reports from a Leaf and Tesla driver that the charger melted their charging port. The one user reports Tesla didn't cover the damage. There is no follow up reports so not sure how it all turned out but I'm definitely avoiding any chargers with problems reported like that.

2). You need ~4-5 different apps for all of the different charging stations. They all work differently and sometimes there is a trick to getting them activated. Its not a big deal or much of a learning curve but there are no attendants and good luck trouble shooting a station problem over the phone. I've read reports from users who couldn't get a charger to activate and I suspect they just didn't realize it was free and to activate they just needed to plug it in!

3). Cost is ridiculously cheap to charge at home and for the most part is free at slower 6-7kW chargers except for maybe for normal parking. My issue here is not a huge problem because charging is so cheap but at home you get charged for total electricity used as it should be; at chargers you are charged by time regardless of whether you get the advertised charging rate. You are still charged the timed rate even if the charger stops for some reason. With most chargers that I activate I get a summary email or text stating session duration and energy used (kWh). Why are they charging by time only and not energy used? Its problematic that this is the industry norm you aren't being charged for the actual energy. On the other hand it does encourage you to charge at stations efficiently. Can you imagine needing a fast 5 min DC charge and waiting in line for a car that is charging at 50kW for 30 min because that's as fast as they can charge? People are morons and yes they will clog a fast charger even though they can't handle the charge. And I just convinced myself the current way to charge for time is best...

Last thing really important to highlight how different an experience fueling the EV is for most people with a driveway. The only reason I have used chargers away from home is because I'm inherently cheap and like to find convenient places I already go to and can charge for free. I also wanted to try fast charging to practice for future long road trips but there has actually been no need to charge away from our 15 amp home outlet despite going to Vancouver and up the coast numerous times.

We will make the road trip from Victoria to Calgary this summer and I expect only needing to stop 4 times keeping battery 20-90%. In comparison to a good mileage car you need to stop twice for gas and most normal people stop to eat twice anyways too. My stops should be <20min at 150kW chargers. I don't expect the trip to take much longer than normal with good planning but there are unknowns like what happens if a fast charger station has a line or is down. You can charge 20% (or about 100km range) in 20 min at a 50kW bcHydro station which is plentiful and reliable.

If you haven't taken an EV for a test drive yet you should. The conceived inconveniences aren't close to the improved driving experience and advantage to fueling at home in my opinion.

Instant smooth acceleration at any speed.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Why do all of these companies insist on creating butt ugly interiors for their EVs? If I wanted something that looks like a Tesla that's what I would buy, otherwise just give me your standard interior

screens are getting out of hand...people don't pay enough attention as it is (not just an EV problem)

[Azure]

Yeah, new F150s have a massive screen. Very distracting when driving.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

For most skiers that's almost every weekend. Like I said, those are my reasons at this point, I didn't mean to apply it to everyone. If I commuted by car downtown to work every day I'd probably have one by now (as one of 2 vehicles) because they make so much sense for that. And it would probably be the Bolt.

With an ICE, ski trips still require fill-up(s) within a couple days before/after.

I would never dream of paying to park at a ski hill...but if it included re-fueling/re-charging service I might reconsider.

Originally Posted by dino7c

screens are getting out of hand...people don't pay enough attention as it is (not just an EV problem)

I haven't driven enough new cars to know, but can you at least navigate them with steering wheel controls or console dials?

[Roger]

Originally Posted by peter12

Gas will be dead in ten years. Maybe even sooner. EV tech and adoption is starting to scale exponentially.

If you're going to abuse glue, you're suppose to sniff it, not smoke it. Seriously, what planet are you talking about that's going to be off gasoline in 10 years? All of the machines already mentioned, such as big rigs and farm machinery aside, what about ATVs, various small engines, and the one I'm personally mystified by, generators? You should get on inventing a generator that runs on electricity. Seems like it could be a money maker.

Or were you just talking about actual passenger vehicles? The ones that people regularly drive that are 10-15-20-25-30 years old? This prediction is about as likely as your Covid one from two years ago. Trust me, the gasoline bad boy will still be around for summer of 2032.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

With an ICE, ski trips still require fill-up(s) within a couple days before/after.

I would never dream of paying to park at a ski hill...but if it included re-fueling/re-charging service I might reconsider


I haven't driven enough new cars to know, but can you at least navigate them with steering wheel controls or console dials?

Well ya, but gasing up is quick. As to charging at the hill, sure fine for a few vehicles but no good for everyone. Imagine the infrastructure for charging 5000 vehicles, 2 days a week for half the year. No way that makes sense financially. So if we are talking about everyone in EVs, they will need the range for that.

[Wormius]

Charging time and station congestion has been a discussion since this thread began nearly 3 years ago. I find it concerning that one of the more major infrastructure problems hasn’t really been adequately addressed. And not only that, how are the mountain parks even going to be able to supply that much electricity? Where are the cars going to go while waiting in queue? People think Costco gas stations are a mess; this will look worse than the right-lane on HWY 1 in front of Peter’s during the summer.

[opendoor]

There isn't really a way to adequately address that kind of use case (thousands of cars needing to charge at basically the exact same time), at least in any way that makes sense with current levels of adoption. Long term, level 2 chargers at basically every parking spot would probably be the only real solution, but the costs would be enormous.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by opendoor

There isn't really a way to adequately address that kind of use case (thousands of cars needing to charge at basically the exact same time), at least in any way that makes sense with current levels of adoption. Long term, level 2 chargers at basically every parking spot would probably be the only real solution, but the costs would be enormous.

I think predictively, you could simply count the cars going through gas stations now and determine the impact of charge time on surrounding traffic and infrastructure if you can’t get cars in and out fast enough. I guess it’s fine for somebody if they’re first or second in line, but third or fourth waiting for a charger what can that person do if there’s not enough chargers? I am sure some trip planning can mitigate tie ups a bit, but how would that work? If you hit Canmore and there’s no open spots, where is the next place? Are they going to be building up charging stations in the national parks, with electricity coming from…??

[Roger]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I think predictively, you could simply count the cars going through gas stations now and determine the impact of charge time on surrounding traffic and infrastructure if you can’t get cars in and out fast enough. I guess it’s fine for somebody if they’re first or second in line, but third or fourth waiting for a charger what can that person do if there’s not enough chargers? I am sure some trip planning can mitigate tie ups a bit, but how would that work? If you hit Canmore and there’s no open spots, where is the next place? Are they going to be building up charging stations in the national parks, with electricity coming from…??

In case you haven't heard, gas will be gone in 10 years, so they can just convert all gas stations into charging stations, and bring in electricity by the truckload. It's really just that simple.

[Table 5]

Even if you remove “gas” from the equation, I think people sometimes don’t realize how vital fossil fuels and minerals are to building even the greenest of green cars.

Just think about all the parts in your car...
• All the steel? Requires carbon, iron ore, and metallurgical coal to get the temperatures high enough.
• All the plastic? Made from petroleum.
• The batteries? You need lithium, cobalt, nickel, phosphorus, silver, aluminum, iron etc.
• The electronics and wiring? Rare-earth metals, copper, tin etc.
• All that wonderful “cruelty-free” leather? You’re basically swapping animals for seats made from oil.
• Glass? You don’t have glass without raw material and high heat.
• Rubber in your tires and trim? That needs to be vulcanized.
• Oh, you want parts to move? Well, you’ll need some oil-based lubricants for that.

Add on top of that:
• The amount of mining that needs to happen to get all these raw materials. Mining which needs heavy-duty machines that need to be built with raw materials, to be powered by diesel, and eventually replaced.
• The stable base-load energy required to power the factories making all these car parts.
• The transportation of all these raw materials, individual parts, and finished cars around the world.
• Perhaps the biggest issue, the upgrading of our entire electrical grid to handle all these electric cars, which will require a massive amount of things like copper.

If we want to shift to electric cars and meet 2040 climate goals, the International Energy Agency says mineral supplies will need to increase by 30 times(!). Think of the amount of exploration, mining, transportation, and fuel energy that will be required to make that happen.

Now we may be ok with doing all of this, but anyone who thinks the "energy transition" happens without fossil fuels and minerals is frankly not a serious person. Frankly, nothing in life happens without resource extraction.

[powderjunkie]

Re-charging is a pretty minor logistical problem with myriad possible solutions as demand requires.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Well ya, but gasing up is quick. As to charging at the hill, sure fine for a few vehicles but no good for everyone. Imagine the infrastructure for charging 5000 vehicles, 2 days a week for half the year. No way that makes sense financially. So if we are talking about everyone in EVs, they will need the range for that.

I think destination/attraction based charging could be much faster and more convenient than gassing up. Possible solutions:
1. valet parking - yes, it will cost a bit more, but it would be especially convenient in a ski-hill situation. Self-parking is a terrible waste of space when everyone leaves 6 ft between cars (despite employing parking attendants to prevent it). Most ski resorts already charge for regular parking, and we may not be far behind here. AV tech may eventually reduce staffing requirements.

2. Longer cords. Especially in a case where people are leaving their vehicles for 6+ hours, you just add more cords and the charger rotates through the cars. Or attendants comes by throughout the day to swap cords.

3. Battery swapping or inductive charging (lot wide); longer-term, but solutions will stay in stride with the problem.

All of these can apply to a highway service-station or any road-trip attraction.


Building the infrastructure and meeting the energy demand in certain locations is also a challenge, but not exactly insurmountable. There are tons of seasonal resort towns / resort areas...is it so hard to imagine semi-portable chargers that can be relocated to suit demands (LLSR in the winter, up to the lake in summer...)

Does the journey from crude in the ground to become refined gasoline at a gas station in Lake Louise make any more sense? We've had a century to optimize that process to meet massive demand...I think we'll figure out how to get a few more watts out to the divide (or anywhere else we need it).

[Muta]

Anyone else impressed by the design of the Ioniq 5? Gorgeous lines.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by Muta

Anyone else impressed by the design of the Ioniq 5? Gorgeous lines.

I am. I looked into it and it's also a decent price.

We'll see if there are any around when it's time for a new vehicle.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Well ya, but gasing up is quick. As to charging at the hill, sure fine for a few vehicles but no good for everyone. Imagine the infrastructure for charging 5000 vehicles, 2 days a week for half the year. No way that makes sense financially. So if we are talking about everyone in EVs, they will need the range for that.

Ya this is my challenge too. To make matters worse, we spend just as many days backcountry skiing off hwy 93 as we do at the resort.

Like you we’re a one car household but when our current car kicks it I’m really hopeful that there will be a good way to make an EV fit our lifestyle.