Electric vehicle war, is gas soon to be toast?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

This is after 216,000 miles. Or 350,000km. How many problems would a gas vehicle have had by then?

Probably not that many, given the high reliability and long life-span of modern cars.

And the thing I would least expect to degrade is the fill rate of the fuel tank. Unlike David99 who in recent months have seen further degradation in his battery:

My charge times are now aprox 40-60% longer. When I have to charge to very high level (winter, long distance to next station) it is more than double. A full charge used to take 1:20 min, it now takes more than 4 hours. 'why would you even charge to 100% at a supercharger?'. Well, because Tesla has crippled my car down to 200 miles of rated range. In unfavorable conditions that's barely enough to do a 130 mile leg between two superchargers.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/4274798/

[Calgary14]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Frankly, based on your post it sounds like EV's are just not profitable.

Expensive to manufacture, with much less service, but expected at the same price as a gas vehicle.

Why would Toyota want to pursue this when they can't build enough hybrids?

Are they more expensive to manufacture? When I mentioned costs I was referring to the consumer side (ie. repairs and maintenance). I have no idea if they are more to manufacture. I would be willing to pay more for a low maintenance electric vehicle that could last a long time

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Probably not that many, given the high reliability and long life-span of modern cars.

And the thing I would least expect to degrade is the fill rate of the fuel tank. Unlike David99 who in recent months have seen further degradation in his battery:




https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/4274798/

And there's Tesla's with 500,000 miles plus with hardly any degradation.

Anecdotes aside, am electric drivetrain is orders of magnitude more reliable than a gas powered engine

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Frankly, based on your post it sounds like EV's are just not profitable.

Expensive to manufacture, with much less service, but expected at the same price as a gas vehicle.

Why would Toyota want to pursue this when they can't build enough hybrids?

Toyota didn't make a profit on their hybrid tech for 10 years.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

Are they more expensive to manufacture? When I mentioned costs I was referring to the consumer side (ie. repairs and maintenance). I have no idea if they are more to manufacture. I would be willing to pay more for a low maintenance electric vehicle that could last a long time

Right now, they're more expensive to produce than gas cars because of the battery. The drive train is cheaper, but batteries are expensive.

However, the cost of batteries is falling fast. In 2010, the cost per kWh (about 4-5 km range per kWh) was over $1,000. Tesla is rumoured to be producing them below $100/kWh now and the price is still dropping.

This is why you used to see EVs with really low range being really expensive, then the price stayed the same with range increasing. For example, the Nissan Leaf has been approximately the same price for a decade. The range though has gone from 117km to 350km without getting more expensive.

[rubecube]

Harbour Air in Victoria here just launched the first electric airplane for commercial flights. They only run between Victoria and Vancouver but still pretty neat.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Harbour Air in Victoria here just launched the first electric airplane for commercial flights. They only run between Victoria and Vancouver but still pretty neat.

Did they launch it for the public? I thought that was just a test flight? I assume there is a lot of Transport Canada approvals before it would go commercial, no?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Harbour Air in Victoria here just launched the first electric airplane for commercial flights. They only run between Victoria and Vancouver but still pretty neat.

I wonder what the cabin noise is like in that. The biggest problem with regular puddle jumper planes is how insanely loud they are

[Wormius]

I wonder if that would be more suitable for getting something like a glider up into the air on its own. What size of battery would you need to otherwise keep a plane in flight for a meaningful length trip somewhere?

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Harbour Air in Victoria here just launched the first electric airplane for commercial flights. They only run between Victoria and Vancouver but still pretty neat.

I take the yvr->Nanaimo route all the time to visit my parents on the island. It's a very well run airline, and works very well to tack on to a US->Vancouver flight. I'm thinking I'll let that technology burn in for a few years before I get on an electric one though!

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I wonder if that would be more suitable for getting something like a glider up into the air on its own. What size of battery would you need to otherwise keep a plane in flight for a meaningful length trip somewhere?

https://batterybro.com/blogs/18650-w...o-get-airborne


Lots.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://batterybro.com/blogs/18650-w...o-get-airborne

Lots.

Interesting.



I am curious what an electric version of a jet engine would look like, and would it be powerful enough to propel the plane to take off and cruising speeds and still be compact enough to be viable.

[Fuzz]

The short answer is no. I had read awhile ago ,I can't remember where or the exact number but it was something like the batteries required woudl weigh 40 times the weight of the plane.

[accord1999]

For the Harbour Air test flight, this article mentioned that it had about 1 tonne of batteries, for range of no more than 30 minutes of flight with 30 minutes of reserve.


https://ww.electrek.co/2019/12/10/wo...-takes-flight/


For comparison, the piston engine Beaver uses about 25 gallons per hour for cruising.

[Fuzz]

Converting that to tonnes, you get 0.068. So about 15 times more weight in batteries.

[Wormius]

Not sure how new this is, as I just noticed this coming to Canada. Honda Clarity doesn't look too bad. I think the PHEV version is available in Canada with a range of 76 km per charge. The full electric version, seems to be available in the States, but range looks kind of sad at 143 km


https://www.honda.ca/clarity.

[Aleks]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Not sure how new this is, as I just noticed this coming to Canada. Honda Clarity doesn't look too bad. I think the PHEV version is available in Canada with a range of 76 km per charge. The full electric version, seems to be available in the States, but range looks kind of sad at 143 km


https://www.honda.ca/clarity.

And it looks dated tbh

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Aleks

And it looks dated tbh

Although I find Honda sedans hard to differentiate between, I wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in one.

[GGG]

I think the Kia Niro looks interesting as a PHEV. 7k more than hybrid version.

42km range. Looking at how I drive I'd say 80% of the km would fall under electric. You save 3-4L / 100km vs the hybrid. So at $1 per liter you have a packback of about 125000 electrical Kms after the $2500 government rebate.

So at today's gas price and lifetime ownership it looks to work out cheaper.

I also like the way it looks.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think the Kia Niro looks interesting as a PHEV. 7k more than hybrid version.

42km range. Looking at how I drive I'd say 80% of the km would fall under electric. You save 3-4L / 100km vs the hybrid. So at $1 per liter you have a packback of about 125000 electrical Kms after the $2500 government rebate.

So at today's gas price and lifetime ownership it looks to work out cheaper.

I also like the way it looks.

Not bad looking. The charging port on the front is weird.



Not really thinking much about fender bender situations, but more like after driving in the summer through a fog of mosquitoes and other insects how gross it will get.