I get the point of this article and its tongue in cheek. Twenty years ago people laughed at electric cars with their maybe 30-40 miles of range and 8-12hour charging times. Tesla has done a lot to iron out most of these engineering problems and I applaud them for that. However, articles like this also smack of elitism, especially considering the 6 figure prices most Tesla vehicles sell for. I would love to own a Tesla, just as I would love to own a 2000 acre ranch estate with a huge mansion on it. When electric cars can compete in the range of commodity cars, then we can have this conversation about the merits of electric cars.
I just watched a video comparing the Dodge Charger Hellcat to a Tesla P-85d. Both have similar power, and while you can debate the level of quality of FCA vs Tesla you can still drive a Hellcat(which is an insane gas guzzler) for less money for 5-7 years depending on your yearly mileage. At that point, most people will likely purchase a new vehicle, and that is also assuming you only use free superchargers. A Tesla is definitely a luxury item, I get that, and there are other options. The problem is most current other options are more like the electric cars 20 years ago than a tesla.
Progress is being made and I am excited about that. I would love to have an electric commuter car as long as it could meet the following criteria.
1) seat 5 people comfortably
2) have 150+ miles of range(I drive about 120 miles per day)
3) cost between 30-50k
4) have reasonable performance(say comparable to a german sedan in that price range)
5) recharge quickly and easily, possibly have battery swap capability for the high use days
6) emphasize being a good car and not a "green" car. Im all for taking care of the environment, but will never buy a car with a 60" x 12" GREEN ECO ELECTRIC POWER emblazoned across the side.(In the same way I would never get a car that says "UBER HEMI BIG WANG POWER" either)
7) be reliable and comfortable to drive, with low cost of ownership at least comparable to a reliable petrol car.
I dont think any of that list is unreasonable, and I am glad that Tesla exists, they have done a great service to the electric car.
Your points are very reasonable. However, I think that unless some government funds electric car tech research, the only way is to approach it top down, in a capitalist model. Make an electric car that's expensive, with a very high profit margin. Sell it to the rich. Use the profits to drive the tech advancement. If you approach it by making affordable cars, it will be quite a while before you accumulate enough capital to invest in the technology.
They had one at 53k and another at 55k last week, but those went quick. If you're serious about going electric, keep tabs on that report. You should be able to snag a deal in your price range. The Model S checks off everything on your list except price, and it's just barely out of that range at that.
"the 6 figure price most Tesla vehicles sell for" - really? You're right that they're a luxury item, but let's be accurate here. Only the top-of-the-line performance model is $105k, and that's before tax credits which bring it back down to five figures. The entry model is $75k, and the midrange is $85k.
You're correct, but we're not comparing car prices.
The original claim was that being able to pay six figures for a car puts the purchaser in rare company. For the sake of that argument, it doesn't matter where the six figures come from.
I looked for a breakdown of Tesla sales, but could not find anything. I am pretty sure that it is accurate to say the majority of Tesla Model S's on the road are 6 figure vehicles.
I know this is anecdotal, but here in the Houston area, I would say the breakdown of Model S vehicles on the road are about 5% P65, 65% P85, and the rest P85D/S/+. Now, Im sure there are people who bought the stripped down P65 with no options. However, Most of these P85s are loaded, and a quick glance at the Tesla motors site shows that a 70 will cost you 76,750 base and 91,250 loaded (+ 1200 dest®ulation fee.) A 85/D will cost you 81,750 base and loaded is over 101,250. Cars like the ones most magazines test are fully loaded top of the line models. The sticker on the P85D in the video vs the charger hellcat was 129k. Sure you can get one in the 75-90k range, but most on the road are not going to be equipped that way.
This is just the nature of the car business(even a disrupted one). People want options, and base price is rarely what gets delivered, there is just too much profit to be had from options.
I am not saying this to deride Tesla, but lets call the model S what it really is, a 100k electric car with great performance.
You might be a bit mixed up on the Tesla lineup. The P models are the high-end performance versions (the P is for "performance"). There's no such thing as a stripped-down P Tesla. There was never a 65 of any variety. There was a 60, but there was never a P60. Right now the lineup is 70D, 85, 85D, P85D. (The D being for "Dual motor" i.e. all wheel drive.) Previously there was a 60 instead of the 70D. Long ago there was a 40, but it got discontinued almost instantaneously.
My own anecdotal experience is that virtually every Tesla on the road is an 85, with 85D starting to supplant it now, and the 70D probably going to start taking that crown once it ships.
I bought my 85 with lots of reasonable/useful options (tech package, sunroof, rear seats) but without the frilly stuff (high-end sound system, "premium interior") and it was comfortably under $100,000 even without counting the federal tax credit.
I wouldn't object too strenuously to rounding my price up to "100k" as part of discussions like this, though.
My mistake, I knew P stood for performance so just a typo. Its been so long since Ive seen the 60 that I couldnt remember the model designation. Either way, I still think my argument stands as reasonable...
It most definitely is a luxury item, but not high-end luxury; it's interesting how the sales corrolate with the price. If you look at Scandinavia, the Model S is around the same price as a BMW 5 series and people go "OMG! WANTS!", whereas in the UK with essentially zero subsidies it competes with Aston Martins or the Maserati Ghibli and the posh people go "Bah, no thanks".
This is exactly what I thought when I read this. It's incredibly pretentious and doesn't come off well.
That said, electric cars are more accessible than ever. The leaf starts at only $21000, which is in the range of most new-car buyers.
The real problem is the lack of diversity. There are very expensive electric sedans like the Teslas and the i8, and then there is the leaf and plug-in prius. But, there are not downmarket electric compact sedans, minivans and true SUVs. If you want an electric vehicle, you either have to shell out $800 a month or get stuck with an odd-looking hatchback. I really hope manufacturers begin rolling out new form factors for their EVs sooner rather than later.
Well the other problem is that many electric cars assume you have the facilities to charge them on your own. Home ownership should not be a precondition for car ownership.
Certainly I could _afford_ a Leaf or a Tesla if I wanted to make room for the payments. I'm more concerned how to charge it if I don't own a garage, and I'm sort of grossed out by how nearly all literature on the subject just totally glosses this over.
To the extent that 1) cities allow designating street parking for EV vehicles in residential areas, 2) that vehicles standardize on charging texhnology, 3) that the cost of building a charging station can be amortized over the useful life, I think that you will see on-street charging options for your EV.
With the right level of standardization and getting some of the costier components inside the car instead of at each outlet, I wonder how much it costs to embed an outlet in the asphalt right next to a parking space, if you were wiring say, 100,000 residential street parking spaces?
Very true. I live in a a city where there are quite a few places to charge, but I imagine that there are millions of people who would be interested in an EV but don't have access to the infrastructure.
I agree. If this were written by a Nissan Leaf blog it would come off far more proletariat and I'm not sure any of it would have to be changed (except the bit about the frunk).
They're not really there yet, though; right now it seems like Tesla's still raising capital via the Model S and (eventually) the Model X. A significantly-cheaper Tesla (which probably ain't the Model X) will probably arrive alongside the new battery-churning Gigafactory they're building here in Reno (since that'll allow for better economies of scale with the batteries at least), which is slated for completion by around 2017 IIRC.
> I just watched a video comparing the Dodge Charger Hellcat to a Tesla P-85d. Both have similar power, and while you can debate the level of quality of FCA vs Tesla you can still drive a Hellcat(which is an insane gas guzzler) for less money for 5-7 years depending on your yearly mileage.
Was that for US prices of fossil fuels? While I don't know about Sweden (where this article appears to have been written), but compared to prices in the Netherlands, in the US gasoline is about 2-3x as cheap (at least, last time I checked, I don't own a car so I don't keep quite as close an eye on these prices).
Or compare for yourself (today's average Dutch price is 1.735 euro per liter):
If you can accept plug in hybrid as electric there are tons of good options matching almost all your criteria, Audi, Mercedes, BWM, Lexus, Volvo, VW, Toyota(more than just prius) etc etc, all have plug in hybrid variants of their normal cars. All without any big stickers, that's probably why you haven't even realized that they exist out on the roads :)
Hybrids also have the benefit of always fulfilling criteria 2 and 5, which pure electric simply don't.
Also, the Model III should be more affordable as well, and get close to matching your criteria...seating 5 people "comfortably" is arguable with most sedans and crossovers though. However, I haven't heard much about it since the initial announcements: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a12983/35000-tesla-mode...
The calculations in Sweden (where the author/s are) are entirely different. The Tesla isn't a luxury item there, and you can't drive a small cheap car for equivalent price, since the taxes and gasoline costs are so high.
The Tesla is definitely a luxury item here in Sweden. I drive a Renault diesel and I could buy three of those for the price of a Tesla (yeah, I know, apples/oranges...) TCO for a Tesla will (sadly) be a lot higher than for a fossil fuel car, simply because of the high purchase price.
Take a look at the VW e-Golf. It retails for $34k, seats 5, is still VERY fun to drive with great performance. However, it will fail on your range and charging time requirements. For a shorter commute I think it might work pretty well for you.
My list is almost identical to yours, but I need range more in the 300-400 mile range, in short an electric mid size or large sedan - I drive a crown victoria now, and would be looking for something similar.
The charging confuses me. Of course you pay to get gas at the pump, don't you pay to get electricity?
I've always wondered that, seeing cars charge on the street or in parking lots, how does the system know whom to charge... or is it government-sponsored to promote electric cars?
Edit: Relevant section
> The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home, and there are no free gas stations. We tried to explain our questions, in case he had misunderstood, but he insisted that you can not. Apparently you have to several times a month drive to the gas station to recharge your petrol car at extortionate prices – there are no alternatives!
Edit 2: I should clarify, I'm from the Netherlands (Europe).
In relative terms, charging an electric car from home is cheap. It is even negligible enough to where the companies that sell you electric cars will do so by comparing the purchase price of an electric car to the cost of a normal gasoline car plus the gasoline over the next several years.
The charging stations on the street usually belong to a consortium with a membership card that unlocks the charging port or it may also belong to your local energy company. Subsidies may also apply to the energy supplied by them.
I pay $0.21/kWh for electricity (electricity generation and distribution charges combined) and usually get between 3.0 and 3.6 miles/kWh (lower in winter; hope to be somewhat higher in summer).
So, electricity is costing me 6-7 cents per mile before considering the inefficiencies of the charger, so likely 7-9 cents/mile at the meter.
For a typical 12K miles/year driver, those costs are order of magnitude the same as the battery pack depletion (for my LEAF anyway).
There are a number of places currently where the government will subsidize electricity used for cars.
In Bowling Green, Ohio for example city parking lots have a couple electric car chargers that are free. Park your car & pay the meter (the parking isn't free!), plug it in, and walk downtown for some eatery.
True. But let's not forget how electricity is generated. In the US 68% is generated from fossil fuels (coal and gas). One also (indirectly) burns fossil fuels when driving an electric car.
>There are a number of places currently where the government will subsidize electricity used for cars.
So both the car and electricity are subsidized by hard working tax payers? Well, that can't last forever, so what's the REAL cost here? I think when we remove the welfare the cutsey "OMG GAS COSTS MONEY" argument will be dismissed as hyperbolic nonsense it truly is.
I think the "electric is cheaper" argument is complete bunk without government welfare. The real cost of that giant Lithium-Ion battery and energy is non-trivial. Lets remember we're talking about a $100,000 Tesla here. That's not affordable by most.
Not to mention, the money vs time cost. When I take a roadtrip or a long drive I can drive 300+miles, no issue, and refill in a couple minutes. With an electric I need to stop often and spend god knows how long getting a full charge, then go again. Imagine the costs here associated with long range trucking, delivery vehicles, etc. Or just time cut from my precious vacation time. Unless there's a massive breakthrough in battery cost, you're actually paying a lot more than an ICE car for day to day driving.
Gasoline is so energy dense, so plentiful, and so easy to work with, its going to be VERY difficult getting off it. I pity the electric guys. They know its a uphill battle and lodging themselves into the luxury high end for economic survival is very telling. The "low" end is still a $35k+ car with quarter the range of the Tesla, which is terrible from pretty much any rational metric.
Hear hear. According to these stats, in 2013 renewable energy was receiving subsidies of about $7 billion per year and fossil fuels about $3 billion, but over the previous 6 decades fossil fuels received an average of $9.9 billion per year in 2010 dollars (with oil being 62% of that). Whether or not you believe in government subsidies, it can be argued that they have been the norm over the past half century regardless of whether you're talking about fossil fuels or alternatives.
"Oil, natural gas, and coal benefited most from percentage depletion allowances and other tax-based subsidies"
It seems disingenuous to directly compare taxing someone less than you theoretically could have vs the "direct federal expenditures" on renewable energy.
Also, "many of the 'subsidies' available to the oil and gas industries are general business opportunity credits, available to all US businesses"
That's more than made up for the fact that fossil fuels receive enormous subsidies in the form of being allowed to pollute without paying anything close to the costs generated by that pollution. If you actually charged the fossil fuel industry for their externalities, the subsidies listed here would fade into insignificance by comparison.
I really feel like you're getting to the point though, where the word subsidy has no meaning. (via the wikipedia entry and the discussion here, it seem's that any time the government isn't taxing you 100% and seizing all your assets you are getting a "subsidy").
In that light, I'd like to see the numbers a different way. How about the difference in direct cash injections. I have no idea where to find it, but it might show a different story.
Also, when it comes to externalities that are hard to measure, isn't there a good chance that the enormous increases in human quality of life due to abundant and relatively cheap access to energy are greater than the costs generated by pollution.
I think it would be useful to have words that distinguish direct "government writes you a check" subsidies from the more subtle kind. But it's useful to discuss the more subtle kind too, and I don't know what else to call it.
I don't think looking at direct cash injections is useful here, because they tell such a small part of the story.
For an example, consider the case where the government takes your money and gives it to some company. That's an obvious subsidy.
Now consider the case where the government doesn't take your money themselves, but rather declares that the company has the right to come into your house and help themselves to $AMOUNT. It's no longer explicit, but it's still pretty clearly a subsidy.
Now let's say that they're in the business of disposing trash, and the government has declared that they can dump trash on your lawn for no compensation, when normally it would cost $AMOUNT. Ultimate effect is the same as above.
Now let's say they're in some other business, that just happens to generate a lot of trash. The government declares that they can dump trash on your lawn for no compensation when normally it would cost $AMOUNT, making their other business much more cost effective. Again, it's ultimately the same as above.
This last one is the fossil fuel situation. The government has decided that certain waste generated by burning fossil fuels can be disposed on other people's land, air, and water without compensation. The costs involved are enormous, but the users of fossil fuels don't pay. The end result is that fossil fuel prices are effectively subsidized by the population at large.
I'm sure the enormous increase in the human quality of life has more than compensated for this damage. But that's not an argument for ignoring the externalities. If it's a net benefit then the total benefit will exceed the total cost including externalities. If the total benefit does not exceed that total cost then it's not a net benefit.
It's especially important now when we're looking at transitioning to other sources of energy. If fossil fuels are only cheaper because of these externalities, then that means the net benefit to humanity is higher with alternatives.
> the enormous increases in human quality of life due to abundant and relatively cheap access to energy are greater than the costs generated by pollution.
I dare you to write down that thought, seal the envelope and tell your children to open it in 40 years.
Try this one weird trick; Future generations hate us!
As a small investor in an oil company I'd be surprised if there was any net subsidy of the oil industry. If you tax a company $10 but then give back $2 in allowances you are not subsidising it by $2, you are taxing it $8. In the UK of what you pay at the pump for petrol about 60% goes in tax.
The USG is not giving me $10,000 to buy a ICE Ford (between fed and state, this is what I would receive). Your argument is fairly disingenuous considering the massive EV tax breaks in existence to today, that are temporary and have done nothing to lower the cost of high capacity Lithium-Ion batteries.
We're 12 years in with thie absurd corporate welfare and still no cheap EV car that can remotely compete with ICE. I'm getting a little sick of hearing "Elon will figure it out in the next 18-24 months." EV enthusiasts have been saying that for YEARS now.
I'm all for letting Tesla try to compete as-is. They've eaten enough corporate welfare. They clearly cannot compete with ICE. Luxury electrics should not be subsidized by the working poor, middle class families, etc.
> "have done nothing to lower the cost of high capacity Lithium-Ion batteries."
What's the evidence for this claim? What I see is expansion availability of Lithium Ion batteries for average consumers in the form of the recently announced PowerWall, and EVs other than the Tesla. Could I have bought a 10kWh battery for $3,500 ten years ago? Five?
It's possible, of course, that this would have happened without the subsidies, but given the rapid growth of this industry in the last few years, I think the burden is on you to offer some evidence that it's totally unrelated to the subsidies.
They probably do increase ratio of electric cars, which in turn increases supply of infrastructure, which will lead to increased demand for electric cars even when the subsidies run out.
It's called subsidizing a positive externality, and it actually creates utility and eliminates deadweight loss. It's not "government welfare", it's the economically wise thing to do!
I have a Nissan Leaf. It retails at $29k, before the tax incentive. They can be leased with no down payment for $250/mo. It's fun to drive, well-made, I absolutely love it.
Teslas are expensive, but if you want an electric car there are many affordable options.
You pay for it with range though in the less expensive options. Even as a second car, 80 mile battery range is pretty much useless for me. Yeah, I could run some local errands or commute to my office but I couldn't even drive in to the city for dinner or some other evening activity (a bit over 40 miles each way).
Not really an option. It's typically street parking. I'd seriously consider an affordable and nice to drive EV but my range threshold is probably 200 miles--at least 150. Otherwise, there would be too much "Do I have enough range?" fiddling for my common use cases--especially once the battery degrades a bit.
I'm pretty much with you. If and when the prophesied $30,000 200-mile EV happens, it'll really change the game.
I do see a lot of Leafs charging around here in various places, so it does seem like a reasonably practical alternative for many. I get nervous if I have to charge away from home, myself.
I have a sporty 2-seater Honda del Sol that gets great gas mileage (but which was apparently too impractical for the typical Civic buyer and not enough of a sports car for the typical Miata etc. buyer). An EV would be a perfect replacement if it holds out long enough. But the range needs to be able to cover all my local area drives even if I'm willing to forgo using it for longer drives out to the mountains in favor of my SUV.
I think the biggest difference, speaking from my experience as a Leaf owner, is that electricity is much cheaper than petrol, more predictable in price/not as volatile as petrol prices, and the car itself is much more efficient than a gas car would be thanks to aerodynamics, regenerative braking and otherwise high efficiency in electric motors when compared to internal combustion engines.
Typical fuel efficiency is 20% (with up to 37%) [2], so let's be optimistic and say 31.5% because that will mean that we would get 3kWh of energy out of every litre of gasoline in energy that is actually used to move the car.
The efficiency of an electric vehicle is much higher, 86% was measured for the Tesla Roadster [3]. Assuming the same figure for a Model S, the effective battery capacity is 73kWh.
Thus, the 85 kWh battery of a Tesla Model S corresponds to a 24.3 litre (6.4 US gallons) gas tank.
In Germany, at 25ct/kWh, that's 21.25€ for the electricity or 34€ for the gasoline (at 1.40€/litre)
An EV will use about 300Wh of electricity per mile. This varies a bit depending on the car (a massive Model S will use more than a Leaf) and how you drive it, but it's a decent approximation. I pay about 13 cents/kWh. That makes my energy cost for driving an EV about 3.9 cents/mile. I believe that's 300Wh out of the battery, so you probably want to add another 10% or so for charging inefficiency, but I'm not sure exactly what the numbers are there so I'll leave them be.
My last car got 40MPG. At current local gas costs of $2.50/gallon, that's 6.25 cents/mile.
And of course, a lot of people think that current gas prices are anomalously low and won't last.
Interesting. That's obviously a good case number for an ICE vehicle (although it's pretty close to my current car at today's gas prices) but I hadn't realized that, from a "fuel" perspective, EVs aren't actually all that cheaper. Yes, 50% is a lot, but it's not multiples. (And, yes, there are some free charging options available but those aren't necessarily available to most people on a regular basis.)
I think most people would be quite pleased if gas prices were half of their current level (especially in Europe, where they are significantly higher than in the US). Plus you don't have to do oil changes ;)
Tesla S has a range of 400 km. This makes the cost 5.31 € per 100 km. An average ICE car of the same size uses, let's say, 8 L per 100 km. The cost for the ICE is then 11.2 €. Twice as much. Don't forget that: you can charge at free stations, charge at a free supercharger, and you can charge the car at night when the electricity price is lower( 25ct is quite high btw ), while the price for the petrol is always the same.
I'm not familiar with taxation in Germany. How are taxes on electricity and on gasoline? Maybe without taxes the costs are not too different, and taxes could be shifted from gas to electricity if gas cars usage plummets (they have to get taxes from something...)
Leaving aside the carbon tax issue, Germany in particular is less likely to shift the tax burden around as Germany has almost no domestic oil production.
"A typical household that uses 3,500 kilowatt hours of power per year pays about 85 euros ($113) a month for electricity." "About 45 euros, just over half the monthly total, is composed of taxes and special levies imposed by government."
"Fuel taxes in Germany are €0.4704 per litre for ultra-low sulphur Diesel and €0.6545 per litre for conventional unleaded petrol, plus Value Added Tax (19%) on the fuel itself and the Fuel Tax. That adds up to prices of €1.12 per litre for ultra-low sulphur Diesel and €1.27 per litre (approximately US$6,14 per US gallon) for unleaded petrol"
So petrol and electricity are taxed about the same but diesel is a little "cheaper". Chances are that taxes won't change much even if all of them switch to electric cars tomorrow.
You are correct that electric cars are not inherently more aerodynamic, but in practice it is easier to engineer them to be more aerodynamic. Not needing a big intake grill at the front makes a substantial difference, as does being able to easily seal off the bottom of the vehicle with a smooth flat surface.
Intake helps, correct, but on the latter point, most newer cars are coming with removable underbody paneling for just that reason. Aero is just improving across the board.
The Nissan Leaf, for example, has a drag coefficient of around .28. While that's good, it's in the same ballpark as the current ICE Honda Fit.
Oh yeah, you are right to criticize the Leaf on that front. You would think if they were going to make a really weird looking car like that, they could at least take advantage of the relaxed design constraints and make it super efficient...
The Tesla Model S on the other hand clocks in at 0.24, which is literally the best you can get on any production car right now. Admittedly this advantage might be partially cancelled out by the larger frontal area, but I think it's still noteworthy.
Cost to operate the vehicle (gas) isn't the whole story. How much do these vehicles cost to insure and is it comparable with a gas car at a similar price point? (Not being snarky, just curious)
Insurance costs are pretty comparable, yes, from what I've heard. (I won't try to talk about my personal experience, since a single data point is just about pointless when discussing insurance, but it's comparable for me too.)
The big problem for Model S insurance is that the body is aluminum, which is a lot more expensive to repair, especially since Tesla wants to exercise a great deal of control over the whole process. This seems to be compensated for by the excellent safety, which reduces potential medical costs.
If you can amortize the battery cost over the miles driven, electric cars ought to be cheaper than gas cars. Less maintenance (no spark plugs or oil changes), less consumables, and the purchase price is about the same (see my first phrase).
If Better Place had worked out, it would have let people shift the battery ownership elsewhere. But it didn't.
You don't pay at Tesla stations, because you've prepaid for the supercharging option. They may have recently eliminated it as a separate ~$2,000 option with the introduction of the 70D, but that just means it is rolled into the price of the car.
> that just means it is rolled into the price of the car.
True. But if there were an option for all-you-can-eat fossil fuel, a lot of the market would probably consider it very seriously, especially if it were less than 5% of the cost of the car.
If you scroll down, and click Europe, you see that almost all of western europe is already awash in Superchargers, and Tesla continues to push east over the next 6-18 months.
You see a lot of Teslas around in Norway, relatively speaking. The favourable tax (discount) helps I imagine, given the punitive tax on private IC vehicles.
Tesla is a money losing company and its cars and its own funding are subsidized by the US taxpayer. $108m in losses last quarter.
Yeah, its neat they can pull this trick, but its meaningless as its clearly non-sustainable. Show me profitability, especially when they're off corporate welfare from my tax dollars. Why are the working poor and middle class families being taxed to make luxury $100,000 cars cheaper for the top 10%?
I'm getting a little sick of paying for a rich person's tax break on a $100,000 car. The reality, regardless of hysterical fanboy HN downvotes, is that EV's make no economic sense for the average car buyer. The market is choosing against them for a reason, and not because everyone else in the world, but you the EV enthusiast, is ignorant.
Personally, I think Lithium-Ion just isn't there from a cost/capacity perspective and will never get there. ICE alternatives are still forming and we'll probably look back at the crazy Tesla days the same way we look back at other oddball cars like the Delorean. Middle-aged millenials will be fixing them up in 20+ years and enjoying their kitschy value.
Heck, even if we get cost down to ICE levels (and we wont) we still have major wear issues to worry about:
The results of an Idaho National Laboratory study released in March found that the test LEAFs lost 22-26% of their initial capacity after just 40,000 miles.
So on a hot day with the AC on, what am I getting in range from a $30,000+ EV with 40,000 miles? 30-40 miles maybe? There's a reason no one is buying these things.
tldr; ICE will die someday, but it wont be lithium-ion that kills it.
If you look at their strategy, they're aiming to make profit around 2020 when the Gigafactory is at full capacity and the Model 3 is shipping at full capacity. At that point, the government subsidy expires for Tesla (100,000 cars shipped by one manu) and they make full profits on their own dime. If they were really unsustainable, nobody would be investing in TSLA right now.
The tax subsidy applies to all electric cars, and has made the Leaf and other cars in its class affordable for many Americans, which has pushed electric car adoption.
Even in the case of Tesla, there are plenty of people who couldn't afford a Tesla if it weren't for the $7,500 tax credit. It seems silly, but it's a big chunk of money, and when you're stretching your budget to afford a nice, eco-friendly and American-produced car, the extra subsidy really helps.
Tesla is opening the door for sustainable transit in the U.S., has pushed other car manufacturers to follow suit, and is creating a buttload of jobs with their domestic factory, the Gigafactory 1, their local service centers, and whatever comes next.
It is frustrating to see tax money thrown at corporations, but hey, Tesla didn't take a multi-billion dollar bailout when they made poor business decisions and were going to cost America millions of jobs. Just something to put this in perspective.
The gigafactory concept is just domestic manufacturing. It cannot change how much Lithium there is in the ground, how hard it is to get to it in these quantities, and how expensive it is to turn into batteries, etc. Its nice that Elon has his own manufacturing, but the cost savings compared to outsourcing are probably going to be trivial.
Unless he can get prices down to a 1/10th of what it costs today, he won't ever be competitive outside of the luxury market. Lets start calling a turkey a turkey here. EV's as the affordable family car is just not going to happen. When do the taxpayers say enough is enough? I think its time. Lets let Elon use his PERSONAL billions to run this turkey. If he did, we both know he'd shut down in a second.
The "scales of industry" argument is fairly bunk considering their previous source was Panasonic, who knows full well how to make cheap lithium-ion. There's only so much we can do to cheapen them. We're probably very close to the minium manufacture cost. Cutting out the middle-man will save Elon, what, 5% maybe, 10% if everything goes perfectly? He needs a minimum of 60-80% to compete with ICE.
Heck, the "gigafactory" is just a legal shell for panasonic to come in with their engineers and their patents and their processes under Elon's US company. Elon is just putting on his top hat and monocole and playing landlord, he is not engineering these batteries:
"According to the agreement, Tesla will prepare, provide and manage the land, buildings and utilities. Panasonic will manufacture and supply cylindrical lithium-ion cells and invest in the associated equipment, machinery, and other manufacturing tools based on their mutual approval."
--
tldr; Lithium-ion just isnt cost competitive (and has major wear issues). ICE is winning for a reason. We need something better to defeat ICE.
edit: downvotes with zero cites, zero cost arguments against my thesis but wishful thinking? Stay classy HN.
> EV's as the affordable family car is just not going to happen
The average price of a used car last year was $15,900. For that you can buy a 2012/2013 Nissan Leaf with low miles and still have a few grand in your pocket.
EVs as the affordable family car has already happened.
Of course the Gigafactory can change the cost of battery manufacturing. The economies of scale apply here, as the Gigafactory will (roughly) double the world's production of LiIon batteries.
You continue to make these baseless claims in this thread, which makes me question the sincereness of your participation in this discussion.
You honestly think mega manufacturers like Panasonic don't have the proper scale for lithium-ion? I'm not denying Elon can cut costs by uber-specializing and cutting out middle-men, but we're looking at maybe 5% or even 10% or so, not 70-80%. Which is what you need to be comparable to ICE cars.
Heck, panasonic is literally making the batteries INSIDE HIS FACTORY. So don't expect big cuts:
"According to the agreement, Tesla will prepare, provide and manage the land, buildings and utilities. Panasonic will manufacture and supply cylindrical lithium-ion cells and invest in the associated equipment, machinery, and other manufacturing tools based on their mutual approval."
"You honestly think mega manufacturers like Panasonic don't have the proper scale for lithium-ion?"
What is the proper scale? The scale of this factory is the same size as all the other lithium battery plants in the world combined. And do you think Panasonic would be throwing money at it if it thought the numbers were that wrong? This is constantly being presented by some people as a sort of majestic con being perpetrated by Elon, which is just ridiculous when you consider the other players involved.
Its not a con, he knows he can save $trivial_amount domestically. He can probably hit 5% and have ownership of this thing, which is great, but he's not hitting ICE price levels. He's still hitting luxury car price levels. Tesla is a luxury car maker, why is that so hard for people to understand? He competes against Mercedes, Jaguar, etc and wants to sell better to buyers in that class, hence the gigafactory.
He cannot compete with Honda, Chevy, etc. ICE makes far too much sense.
'I don't want to be paying X subsidies' is very tired rhetoric which can be applied to every industry under the sun, and you are describing a class of people who you have almost no knowledge of as ignorant.
Furthermore, the profitability criticisms you level are clearly not valid for a growth company. If Tesla wanted to they could be profitable tomorrow, but they're investing in the company so they aren't.
Your numerous comments on this thread all overlook (as far as I see) the fact that Tesla is not the only EV on the market. There are others that are much cheaper, including plug-in hybrids, electric/gasoline hybrids" like the Volt and BMW i3, and fully electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf.
I think that all these other examples make clear that, if nothing else, the Tesla's high price tag is not exclusively (or even primarily) driven by the cost of its battery. The Tesla, after all, is also a very high end luxury vehicle. Equivalent ICE vehicles are not drastically cheaper. The growth of this category also suggests that the market may not be "choosing against [EVs]" in the way that you claim.
Cost is standardized on range. There's no cheap 250 mile EV. Using Tesla as a comparison against ICE is 100% fair. They all use the same lithium-ion tech and li-ion prices are consistent and nothing is going to make them drop down 70% to be competitive with ICE.
The only thing "consistent" about LiIon prices is their relentless decrease. If you think battery technology is going to hit some plateau in the short run I think you need to seriously re-evaluate that assumption. The path we are taking is exactly the technological progress that you would expect to see and in fact is happening much faster than anyone expected 10 years ago.
The article was obviously part satire and baiting this kind of response but I'd encourage you to walk into a Tesla showroom and look at the marvelous simplicity of the vehicle construction and components. It certainly will revolutionize how cars are made and there's no question reliability and economics will eventually trounce ICE, and again a lot sooner than anyone would have expected.
Tesla has capitalized on the zeitgeist with this, and say what you want about Elon, but that's all irrelevant. Say what you want about the environmental externalities, but ultimately when it comes to mainstream adoption they are irrelevant as well. The economic argument is that cars will be safer, faster, more reliable, and cheaper to operate, in the long run, without an ICE in them.
Ultimately it's a good thing that this will play out over 50 years, since there's a hell of a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built and even more which will become obsolete.
> Why are the working poor and middle class families being taxes to make luxury $100,000 cars cheaper for the top 10%?
2 points here - 1) there are electric cars that aren't 100k Teslas and 2) the 'working poor' don't typically wind up paying federal income tax in the US (as long as they file a return properly - which sucks but..) In fact with the EITC low income families may actually see a negative income tax...
It's not sustainable ATM, no, but it's using a similar strategy as all the hip startups on HN use - get users first, money comes later. In Tesla's case, their initial investment is just several orders of magnitude larger than hip startup X.
And it will pay off. They're building hard to become the world's largest battery producer. And once their affordable model comes out, they will quickly grab a nontrivial share of the nearly one trillion car market.
So on the one side you're paying for the rich person's tax break. On the other you're paying for a greener future, independent of fuels - and you'll be driving an electric car yourself in 5-10 years, and hopefully think back with a smirk about how you made do with the old cars, like you probably do now with brick phones or a world without internet.
I have somewhat mixed feelings on the subsidies. On the one hand, I'm all for encouraging innovation in renewable power, energy conservation techniques, and electric vehicles. On the other hand, it's true that most of the "green" tax credits available to consumers--whether for electric cars, solar panels, or energy-efficient windows--do go to relatively high-income individuals. And it's not unreasonable to be discomfited by that fact.
That said, as others have mentioned, there are lots of subsidies for lots of things and the premise of these ones seems laudable for the most part however they're delivered.
Its been 12 years and lithium-ion prices are fairly stable, there's nothing that can lower them to ICE competitive levels. If this was any other company you guys would be screaming the usual libertarian take of "OMG MY TAXES" instead of this mindless fanboy worship Elon seems to evoke.
I am impressed by Tesla, but by their marketing. They make smart people sound very, very stupid by advocating for a $100,000 car as the Model T of our time.
I can't answer your question, but i can tell you that engery prices will rise, if more people need more electricity to charge their cars. Electricity cost is so "low" because most cars don't need this type of Engery.
To solve this issue people need to charge their cars at home with solar power.
Electricity costs are low because electricity is inherently cheaper to generate and distribute than gasoline. Big, centralized power plants enjoy economies of scale that allow them to be much more efficient and operate more cheaply. They can also use fuels that are impractical for mobile use (basically all of them). Cars don't use gasoline because it's cheap, cars use gasoline because it's dense. If you don't need density then you can use much cheaper stuff, like coal, natural gas, uranium, sunlight, water trapped in a big lake, etc.
If everybody switched to electric cars tomorrow, electricity use would go up about 30%. This is far from trivial, but it's not the sort of thing that would cause prices to spike.
Answering the grandparent, payment varies. At home, you obviously just pay it in your electric bill. When charging away from home, some chargers are free. Businesses often put them in to attract customers, and Tesla operates a vast network of chargers whose operating costs are covered by car sales. (These chargers only work on Teslas, and electricity costs are low enough that they can afford to provide lifetime charging for their customers.) Some chargers are paid, and that's typically done with an RFID card (either a regular credit card with RFID, or a card specifically for the charging network) or a smartphone app.
Playing the "what if" game, has anybody discussed how large-scale adoption of charge-at-home EVs would change the collection of fuel taxes? The federal and state additions to a gallon of gasoline here in the US are non-trivial. Would home users eventually be expected to self-report or use a special meter for the purpose of paying equivalent taxes?
That's a good question. We're already playing that game a bit. Virginia, for example, introduced an extra registration tax on hybrid and electric vehicles, with the rationale that they're not paying their fair share of road maintenance from fuel taxes. It was subsequently repealed under the theory that the benefit from not polluting so much outweighs the tax losses.
My random guess is that we'll go to plain old mileage reporting. Fuel taxes for road maintenance may have made sense a long time ago, but fuel use and road wear are fairly weakly correlated now even among gasoline cars, since efficiency can vary so much now.
The problem with a mileage tax is that it would need to either be backed up with tracking (so an Illinois driver wouldn't be on the hook for miles driven in Michigan, as an example), or it would have to be a federal-level tax.
A possible alternative would be to tax the electricity at the charger, but that also opens up more cans of worms.
Another thing to consider is that, beyond normal weathering, most road damage comes from heavy (and often overweight) trucks.
I wouldn't be surprised if tracking happened. Pretty much every new car comes with GPS now, and it could be made to self-report. People would fight it (and I might agree with them) but I think it could happen.
I don't see taxing electricity at the charger as being viable, because it's too decentralized. You can tax gasoline because it's distributed by relatively few places. You can charge a car off a normal 240V outlet (or 120V if you don't mind it being slow) so it'll be way too easy to dodge.
Tracking mileage and assigning to the state of registration might not be too bad. It won't be fully accurate, but the inaccuracies will balance out to an extent. Gas already suffers from this at a smaller level, since you can buy gas in one state and then drive a substantial distance in another state.
The fact that trucks are the ones doing all the damage is a big wrench in the works. Maybe the proper solution would be paying some by taxing truck mileage and making up the rest out of general taxes.
Presumably, any state that does annual safety inspections already has miles-driven info (whether or not it's actually centrally reported today). You'd still need to deal with ownership transfers, collections, etc. but that would be one mechanism to charge per mile without GPS tracking--which (optimistically) seems like a real political hot potato.
I think that another alternative would be to increase the cost of vehicle registration as a percent of the vehicle cost. This way it is progressive and untied to fuel usage. Multi-car discounts could be given much like insurance (cars after the 1st do not add a full car's miles driven).
I don't have a link offhand (my apologies), but there is a DOE report floating around out there from 1-2 years ago stating that almost 80% of the current light vehicle (cars) fleet in the US could be converted over to using the electric grid solely with existing generating capacity.
Combined with the relentless expansion of solar and wind in the US, I disagree with your assertion that energy prices will rise long-term. You'll probably see peaks and troughs as demand increases and supply comes online, but there is a lot of land left for renewables to be deployed to.
Generating capacity isn't the only concern. Distribution capacity is another issue. Thankfully, the vast majority of the projected 30% increase in consumption will not coincide with summertime peak ( air conditioning ) loads, but it may be enough to worry some utilities, especially in the congested Northeast corridor of the US.
Why would the prices rise? We will consume more, and then we pay more, but why would the price per kWh change? In general things become cheaper to produce at scale (though I guess the current energy consumption is already at a big scale).
You could have a home distillery and use kitchen waste as the mash for the starter. Using kitchen waste to make fuel is so green not like those coal-fired electricty plants.
That depends. For example, Tesla operates Supercharger (that's what they actually call them) stations where you can charge your car for free. There are other free options as well.
However, most people will charge the car at home, so let's look at what it costs you to charge an electric car at home. I don't have this data for Europe, but I'm sure you can find it with some digging. In the US, the price of electricity is typically charged in kilowatt-hours (kWh), and varies based on your location. This table tells us the average cost per kWh by state:
I live in Florida, and in a market where the cost per kWh is particularly low. For off-peak times, I pay $0.09/kWh. While that's exciting for me, let's round-off the Florida average to $0.12/kWh and do some math with that.
Some searching around on the internet tells me that a typical Tesla driver will get anywhere from 2.5 miles to 3.5 miles per kWh. Let's go with the median at a flat 3 miles/kWh.
From here, most people jump straight to equating cost per kWh to miles per kWh, but charging is not 100% efficient. I found a reasonably well researched source [1] that puts efficiency at around 80%, which we'll factor in to the cost.
Making some more assumptions, let's look at the cost to drive this theoretical electric car 12,000 miles per year:
12,000/30 (total miles/miles per gallon) => 400 gallons
Calculate cost of petrol at local rates:
$2.85 x 400 gallons => $1,140
Monthly?
$1,140/12 => $95.00
Weekly?
$1,140/52 => $21.92
So, do you pay? In most cases, yes. However, the monthly cost is lower by almost half. The value equation for electric cars is strongly dependent on the input factors. If you drive a lot more miles, or if you pay a lot more for petrol, your value equation changes significantly.
I published this comparison as a Google Spreadsheet as well [2].
This was a fun read, but unfortunately, the electric car isn't practical yet in the environment it should excel the most at - the city. It's only a feasible option if you're a home owner with a garage. I could totally afford a tesla, and I love them, but I don't want to own anything beyond a condo in the city, and that means street parking. Even in the best neighborhoods where I wouldn't worry about the car getting stolen/vandalized, there's still no where to charge it! Residential city areas are never going to be lined with charger plugs for people to parallel park outside their apartments and use.
So, the only people it's practical for, are suburban (or very well off urban) people who don't drive often. I just don't see the infrastructure needed happening in a city the size of Chicago within my lifetime, and since populations are still centered there, I don't see gas cars going away in my lifetime, as much as I'd love them to.
Over here in Finland most apartment building parking lots come with lines of electric outlets (used to keep the cars warm in the winter) that have already been there for tens of years.
Currently these don't have high enough amperage for fast charging of Teslas but the electric companies are already upgrading their infrastructure to enable that.
In my apartment complex (built recently in Sweden) there is a shared garage located below the building. It is a great way to get cars off the streets and certainly a feasible location for chargers. In fact, I believe there are some there already.
Just FYI my friends live in a condo in the city and drive a Tesla anyway. They use the supercharger stations just like normal gas stations -- fill up once a week (or less if you don't drive much) _for free_ and you're good to go. So it's definitely possible, just slightly less convenient than an ICE car due to the small number of high-speed charging stations currently available.
Not in this city. The nearest one is an hourish away, depending on time of day and traffic. This is by the way, the third largest city in the country.
New York has only one in JFK, which as I understand it is an awful place to have to drive to.
Possible, yes, practical, no. "Slight less convenient" is a gross understatement in at least these two cities. LA, well.. the culture of "you just have to take an hour to get anywhere" seems to permeate anyway so maybe it works.
In some countries, you can't even own a vehicle if you don't provide proof that you have some place to park it at (eg. Japan, lookup Shakoshomeishou). In others, you would be crazy to leave a car parked outside overnight, luxury or not - there is insurance, but the premium will easily double (eg many areas in Brazil, particularly the North and Northest states).
My rental apartment in the Bay Area has special parking spots with chargers for EVs. And it's not a particularly high end complex (though it is large). Within a year I would expect this to be standard here, maybe within two years for the rest of the country. It seems pretty standard these days for large public parking lots in places like shopping malls to have them as well.
It's pretty sad that you equate politics and sports and I can't really disagree. Or maybe politics has always been about identity and people who like ideas and ideals are outliers.
> The car’s gasoline engine coughed to life and started to operate. One could hear the engine’s sound and the car’s whole body vibrated as if something was broken, but the seller assured us that everything was as it should
I've only learned to drive and have owned my car for a year now (I'm in my mid-30s), but I just love the engine of my petrol car starting. Often times I choose to drive with my radio turned-off just to hear the engine's sound. Mind you, is a regular 1.4l hatcchbak, nothing sporty or the like.
Later edit: I also love to change gears, honestly. Not sure exactly what it is, but I don't see myself driving an automatic.
> You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time
And about this, there's no "a lot of training" needed, you just get used to it pretty fast. Actually, IMHO, is part of the whole process of you becoming one with your car.
I also love manual transmissions. It will be the hardest thing for me to give up when I eventually make the switch to electric.
I suppose it is similar to the satisfaction the owner of a mechanical watch gets -- but it's more visceral. You're really becoming part of the machine, and you feel it. Coordinating gear shifting with clutch pedal actuation, instinctively doing it all at the right moment based on what you hear and feel from the engine. Your body and mind are involved, consciously and subconsciously. Now all that is just ... gone.
Yup. Being in tune with the vehicle is the most fantastic part of driving. The skill and coordination required, the tactile pleasure of the controls and the gearchange. The automatic kills much of the enjoyment of it. And yes, I've been driving for about 20 years, and yes, I've commuted in some of the worst traffic in America.
Also, changing gears myself does not preclude me from listening to audiobooks, as some commenter mentioned. I'm already sitting there operating the controls on the car. Having one more lever and one more pedal does not exactly tax me mentally, or preclude my other senses, not constitute any real effort aside from perhaps an extra calorie or three burned.
I also never understood the charge that driving a manual sucks for commuting. I've done my fair share of the rather lousy downtown Chicago to Chicago suburbs commute, and never quite figured out what the big deal with all the starting/stopping was supposed to be.
IMO an electric car gets you closer in tune with the car because the input delay from pedal to torque on the wheel is pratically zero and the resolution is insanely more precise than with gasoline. At lower speeds the car feels much lighter, every input you put simply gives you instant feedback making the controls feel even more tactile, almost like riding a bike.
You can not compare electric to driving a gasoline with automatic, those still suffer from all the mechanical delays and are imo worse with regards to this as the delay of a gearshift can come at unpredictable times.
That's the thing though - it's not a mentally taxing activity once you've become accustomed to it. Listening to audiobooks is not a problem.
Driving automatic/electrics is less physically demanding, so it will allow you to more easily eat tacos while driving (which is much more challenging than eating cheeseburgers).
I pretty much always drive with the radio off. My car is a 3L diesel. Purists might scoff, but I've always liked the noise it makes. I was sold pretty much instantly on the test drive and four years later I still love it. Once you're on the move, it's very relaxing, like an ambient music track, with a cheeky whirring noise in the background that becomes more evident when it gets going.
When you're sat stationary with the engine idling, the gear knob and foot pedals shudder, and there's a slight juddering through the steering wheel. Some might think of this as unrefined, and possibly even agricultural, but I find it actually quite comforting. At such low revs the engine also sounds rather clattery... but I don't mind. At least you know it's still there.
(I had a courtesy car a couple of years ago with an engine that was undetectable while idling - and I ended up not liking it! It was so nice to have my car back, with its reassurring vibrations and its clattery engine sound. People are weird.
(But maybe if I'd have been given a Tesla, with its panoply of toys and its space shuttle-style acceleration, I'd have got over it.)
I've only learned to drive and have owned my car for a year now (I'm in my mid-30s), but I just love the engine of my petrol car starting. Often times I choose to drive with my radio turned-off just to hear the engine's sound. Mind you, is a regular 1.4l hatcchbak, nothing sporty or the like.
You have a valid point, but... anyone here misses typewriters? I didn't think so.
First of all, there was an article about Hanx Writer just the other day. Yes, there ARE people who miss typewriters.
Secondly, the word processor does countless things the typewriter cannot do, and does so with an order of magnitude more speed.
The automatic transmission does nothing a manual transmission cannot do (from the end user perspective), other than being ever so slightly less effort, and perhaps a few milliseconds faster in gearchange, which does not matter unless perhaps you are being paid for how fast you can get to the grocery store.
Freed of the tyranny of having to use your left foot for a clutch, what is it that you accomplish while driving an automatic that you could not before?
I don't miss typewriters, never having used them regularly, but they certainly have their advantages as well. If I were to take up something involving more writing I'd probably get one. I spend a lot of my writing time with paper and pen these days.
Uhm I would love a Tesla (if they ever start selling right hand drive versions in my little backward western european country) but at an equivalent of €100K price tag (that means I have to earn ~€210K before tax, to be left with that amount around these parts) its a bit steep...
Neither am I sure that the inept electricity supply board would know how to install a charger for one, and well electricity is expensive here in Ireland, paid €1200 last year for just above 4000KW/hours for my home/office
Yes my petrol 4x4 is 10 years old, yes it does a terrible mileage in a country where petrol is €1.40/liter now, yes it breaks alot and has to be serviced (just this week) and pass yearly road-worthiness testing and costs me a fortune in tax and insurance (€700 + 330 last year)
Maybe if we werent taxed as much I could afford after a few years of saving a luxury of an electric car, until then me good old jeep will continue to drive me over the potholed narrow roads we have (which apparently all that road tax AND now local council tax was meant to improve)
sigh...
tl.dr: The article is funny but not all of us enjoy Nordic standards of living or wages (After tax), or have governments that are not out to fleece the taxpayers and hand their blood money over to failed banks and their developer buddies who helped them get elected.
They are planning to eventually release a more affordable Tesla, just as soon as they can scale up enough that it's viable. The first car they made (the Roadster) was a very expensive supercar, which they sold in low numbers. Then they made the Model S, an expensive, luxury sedan, which they're selling a lot more of. I'm not sure if pricing has been released yet for the Model X but I suspect it'll be cheaper than the Model S and will sell in even greater numbers.
Elon doesn't really seem to be in this for the money or the luxury status - he seems to just care about building great cars that are good for the environment. As soon as he can make really good, affordable electric cars - I'm sure he will.
The Model X is a luxury SUV. ("Estate," in the british isles.) The next model is supposed to be the "Model 3." They can't use Model E, because Ford still has that trademarked or something along those lines. Otherwise, they could have models S, E, and X.
Mildly off topic: It's strange how they've chosen a naming scheme that's minimally coherent and not future-proof. Even the biggest, most well resourced companies don't seem to be able to get this right. Think of Apple and the iPad. The iPad, the iPad 2 the new iPad, the iPad air etc. At this point as a casual observer I am completely confused about iPad naming.
Oh the Model X is definitely still a luxury car, no question. I imagine it'll be more affordable, though. The next model they announce - as you say, the Model 3 - is supposed to be their first truly affordable car.
As much as i like this article, Tesla would never had the success they now have, without the "petrol car"-Industry.
The automotive industry brought a lot of innovations and lowered prices for tooling etc. by a lot. I think this article is very funny (and sad), but you have to give those "old" companies a lot of credit for their work.
That's still no excuse for other companies, not to hop on the electric train.
In my opinion perhaps the most astonishing thing is the development of material technology. How the industry can make engine components that endure mechanical wear for hundreds of thousands of kilometers and tens of millions of engine rotations, with huge pressures and extreme heat inside the engine, applying tremendous forces of torque, and operating in either hot or extremely cold climates.
To be fair, though, we theoretically don't need the car industry at all. Tesla is building an electric industry to solve the emissions problem created by a transportation industry that does not need to exist.
Take NYC for example. MTA enables transportation to just about anywhere in the city, all through an electric, mass-transit trolley system.
If we look at the history of municipal transportation, it looks pretty clear that trolleys were winning over the majority of the car industry up until GM took over trolleys[1] and shut them down to essentially require people to own cars to do any transportation outside of biking and walking.
I think what Tesla is doing is wonderful, but I feel like the problem they are having to solve didn't need to exist in the first place, and the petrol car industry got us in a bad situation.
Absolutely, but the car industry didn't need to innovate there much because demand already existed. The point I was getting at is that we ripped out municipal transit systems, then built spread out cities where implementing mass transit would not be cost effective (i.e. Orlando, FL) but work well with cars. I'm no expert, though. It's just a thought I frequent on whenever looking at the state of transit and where we're going.
> we theoretically don't need the car industry at all
Oh, so we reached the new milestone of 100% people living in urban centers and nobody has let me know ? :)
Obviously a ton of people need cars every single day to actually move from their home to their work place, because, you know, there's not just public transportation everywhere (and even when there is, it can be crappy and inefficient as hell, too).
> Take NYC for example. MTA enables transportation to just about anywhere in the city, all through an electric, mass-transit trolley system.
From my time living in a suburb with a car and living in NYC with no car, the MTA is really really inconvenient and filthy. I wouldn't want to have a car in NYC, but I also wouldn't want to be there in the first place.
Yes, Electric cars are great and have many advantages and improvements over cars with internal combustion engines. I won't deny this.
But until such time an electric cars is available as a compact hatchback that has >800 mile range on a single charge, and go from from depleted batteries to full charge in < 5 minutes, I'll be keeping my VW Golf TDI. The latter fits my use and needs from a personal vehicle better.
If a 15 year old internal combustion engine design can do an 800 mile range, I don't think its unreasonable for electric cars to get there, especially with as fast as Tesla is coming up with improvements to electric cars.
But let us consider advantages to an 800 mile range. Even within the urban core, where a 100 mile range is enough for a few days of commuting along with an emergency reserve, an 800 mile range is going to mean far less-frequent charges, just as it means far less frequent fill-ups for a combustion-powered car. That's less strain on the owner's wallet, and less strain on the electrical grid. These advantages are felt even more acutely by those who don't live and commute in the urban core, be it in the suburbs, outer edge of a metro area, or rural area proper. Not everyone can or wants to live in a densely-packed urban area, and for those who don't, a vehicle with a long range is very practical.
An extended driving range also makes longer road trips less expensive and more practical. A full day's drive with fuel/charge to spare? Yes, please. And even if you think that such is a silly thing which no person should rightly desire from their personal transport when air travel (and airprort security theater) is available, consider another application: Trucks.
Large, long-haul cargo trucks (semis) are one of the main means of transporting goods quickly across the US, and are one of the main consumers of petroleum-based fuels. They get that range by having large fuel tanks -- 100 US gallons or more. Now, imagine if electric car tech can make a compact hatchback go 800 miles/charge, what that could do when scaled up to large trucks. If you want do something about the consumption of petroleum fuels and consequent emissions in the US, getting trucks with the same or superior range on electric power is a good place to focus.
I don't disagree that a long range has advantages, I just don't see why it is needed for normal daily driving for the majority of people in North America or Europe.
> If a 15 year old internal combustion engine design can do an 800 mile range, I don't think its unreasonable for electric cars to get there, especially with as fast as Tesla is coming up with improvements to electric cars.
The range of a vehicle boils down to the volume you can use to store energy, the energy density of the storage medium, and the efficiency of the engine or motor in turning that energy into motion. For this reason I'm skeptical that any amount of engineering would allow for an 800 mile EV within the next several decades, especially since electric motors are already extremely efficient.
According to Wikipedia[0] the efficiency of diesel engines can be up to 50%. Using that number and similar reasoning to this[1] other comment a current Model S P85 stores energy equivalent to 14.7 L (or 3.9 US gallons) of diesel. Your 2000 VW TDI has a fuel capacity of 54.9 liters or 14.5 gallons. This means to go an equivalent distance the capacity of the Tesla Model S battery pack would have to increase by 3.75 times (to 273 kWh), either by increasing the energy density or by making the pack bigger. Even though I am a big proponent of EVs I just don't see that happening.
> Even within the urban core, where a 100 mile range is enough for a few days of commuting along with an emergency reserve, an 800 mile range is going to mean far less-frequent charges, just as it means far less frequent fill-ups for a combustion-powered car. That's less strain on the owner's wallet, and less strain on the electrical grid.
How does it matter how often you fill up? Wouldn't trying to fill a 800 mile battery all at once rather than trickle charging while the car is parked (which will likely be 20+ hours per day) be a much bigger strain on the grid? Won't you be storing the same amount of energy (and therefore paying the same total amount of money for that energy) whether you do it daily or biweekly?
Additionally, in your initial comment you wanted both an 800 mile range and a full recharge from empty in under 5 minutes. Using the above estimate for required battery capacity that means you would have to charge it at a rate of 3.3 MW (yes, megawatts) or nearly 8800 amps at the 375 volt level the Model S battery pack operates at. Short of superconductors I don't think it's even physically possible to transmit electricity at that amperage through wires without causing them to melt almost instantly.
> Not everyone can or wants to live in a densely-packed urban area, and for those who don't, a vehicle with a long range is very practical.
> An extended driving range also makes longer road trips less expensive and more practical. A full day's drive with fuel/charge to spare? Yes, please. And even if you think that such is a silly thing which no person should rightly desire from their personal transport when air travel (and airprort security theater) is available, consider another application: Trucks. [...]
Yes, for long trips, people who live in rural areas (where long-distance travel is more frequent) and for long-haul commercial transportation EVs as they are (and likely as they will be) won't cut it. There will always be gas and diesel vehicles for those applications. However, for the average American who lives in an urban or suburban area and drives less than 100 miles a day EVs (with ranges well short of 800 miles) will probably largely replace ICE vehicles. For them, an 800 mile range is not a requirement.
I just leased a 2015 VW e-Golf last week so this is particularly relevant to me. It will be a commuter car and from the few days of driving it so far, this will be perfect for me. The amazing thing is getting into the car and having it be perfectly silent. The next thing that astonished me was just how fast it could be from a standstill. Plus it's a Golf and my love of Golfs can be found by looking through my comment history here.
I'll admit that I'm still dealing with a bit of range anxiety, but I haven't come close to being truly scared of running out of juice. I generally run it in Eco mode w/ the regenerative braking in mode 1 or 2 so I often make back 10-20 miles of range during hilly drives.
I noticed that a car I drove by yesterday was a Tesla. But I didn't notice immediately, because it looked like a Buick or something.
I don't understand why, if they're trying to do something radically different, their cars look pretty much like everyone else's. Perhaps they are trying not to scare off potential buyers, but it seems like people are already interested in trying something different when they buy a Tesla. I personally would never drop whatever crazy prices their cars cost for something so mundane looking, though.
There's more volume in conventional-looking cars. Look at the responses to the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3, two electric cars that are legitimately funky-looking; something that looks weird will turn more people off than will be turned on.
I think the key point here is that Tesla is not trying to make the world's best electric car, they're trying to make the best car, period. If they try to make something radical and different looking, then they're going to gain some extra traction with people who want to stand out and be different, but they already have those people in the bag anyway.
On the flip side, making their cars deliberately strange looking is likely to turn a lot of people off. People who might otherwise be interested in buying a Tesla simply because it's a high-quality, practical car that competes well with other cars in its price segment, gasoline or not.
Combustion and explosion are orthogonal concepts. You can have combustion without explosion, combustion with explosion, and explosion without combustion (e.g., the failure of a pressurized container without any chemical reaction.)
> Monthly cost for a petrol car can -just for the gasoline alone- easily exceed one hundred Euros
Although I appreciate comparisons from inverse perspectives, a few specific points fell flat. Assuming a rough 10 year lifespan, depreciation on a $20k Civic is $166/mo, while depreciation on a $70k Tesla is $583/mo. Also, if you're worried about carcinogenic effects from a few whiffs of gasoline, then you most likely don't need a car since you've already confined yourself to a hermetic bubble.
Yes. It's foolish to compare the cost of consumable gas vs consumable electricity.
Much better is consumable gasoline versus battery depreciation. Electricity costs nearly disappear.
This was an old adage among the homebrew EV crowd: buying a battery pack is pre-paying for your fuel for the next N years.
The Powerwall[1] is about 35 cents per KWh, assuming it can handle 1000 full cycles. ($3500 for 10KWh capacity.) A decent EV can get 5 miles out of that, so the battery depreciation is 7 cents a mile. That's a multiple of the electricity cost, which is about 2 cents a mile if you don't try for any time-of-day billing.
[1] This is just my best comparison of the actual cost of a Tesla battery.
30mpg at $2.25/gal is 7.5c per mile. Versus 9c for an EV (7c battery, 2c elec), this is a $1500 over 100k miles. If we consider the other maintenance costs, I think they are nearly equivalent.
This thread is rapidly entering territory where only a comprehensive comparison of TCO will suffice (not that those won't be biased either way), but the price of the battery is only one part of the price of the car. 70k$ amortized over 300k miles is still 23¢/mile.
I understand Tesla's luxury-first strategy and hope the future part will pan out, but at the present time it is very weird to be making a cost based argument.
Cute line. Though the reality is that the service needs of modern autos during the first 5 years or so are likely to be pretty modest. Maybe a tire issue (which an EV could have also). Probably brake work which an EV may not require at that point. Various fluids--though oil changes are about 10K miles with synthetics.
One of my vehicles is about 17 years old with 170K miles. I wouldn't expect to get that out of an EV. Don't get me wrong. I'd be interested in an EV someday. But maintenance isn't a big deal within the window where I'd expect to have to replace an EV's battery pack at this point.
Now, let's take this a big step further, and try to see how ridiculously outmoded, destructive and dangerous the entire setup of using cars for routine personal transportation really is..
> You need a lot of training to learn to select the right gear at the right time – though there are also models with automatic transmissions that can do this themselves. In the manual transmission car, we needed to constantly guard the engine from damaging it. Very stressful.
Mmm. That's probably supposed to be funny, except that it is not, since automatic cars are so boring to drive in the first place. Manual cars are the real deal if you want to feel your car and the road when you drive instead of relying on a computer to make your choices. There's certainly a use for automatic transmission (on motorways or on heavy traffic roads for example) but in most other situations I'd rather have manual over it.
> The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home,
Because you don't need to, when you have an autonomy of hundred of kilometers with a single tank. An electric car is like a smartphone, it may be nice to operate (if you like them) but you need to charge them everyday. And you can forget about long distance driving without having to stop for a long while to recharge your car. Oh, and you can store petrol in your car (in your trunk) if you want to go very, very far, but good luck doing that with an electric car if you go in remote places without plugs anywhere to be seen. Electric cars are obviously only for urban zones (or places not too far in between them).
> especially given that all gasoline must be imported from abroad.
Is that article from like 20 years ago ? Because where Tesla is the most popular (i.e. in the US), now a large part of the petrol is actually extracted locally.
> Do not confuse petrol cars’ exhaust pipes with fuel cell cars’ – while hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles emit only water vapor gasoline cars spew out noxious gasses, and even fossil carbon dioxide that contribute to Earth’s future-catastrophic warming!
Yeah, and your electricity that powers your car is still made mostly from fossil fuels in most parts of the world, or nuclear energy which is not too hot with the general public nowadays. It's nice to be blind.
There's certainly a use for automatic transmission (on motorways or on heavy traffic roads for example) but in most other situations I'd rather have manual over it.
Tesla cars do not have 'manual' or 'automatic' transmission as commonly understood. There is no 'gearbox' at all because it is not necessary. The electric engine drives the wheels directly. For slower speeds, it just uses less power.
> Is that article from like 20 years ago ? Because where Tesla is the most popular (i.e. in the US), now a large part of the petrol is actually extracted locally.
The article is from Sweden, which has little oil resources. I'd also argue that Norway is the country which Tesla is more popular, in % of cars sold.
> Yeah, and your electricity that powers your car is still made mostly from fossil fuels in most parts of the world, or nuclear energy which is not too hot with the general public nowadays. It's nice to be blind.
Still, it might be more efficient doing it this way instead of transporting the petrol around to be used in inefficient engines. Also better for the local air and noise pollution.
Still, most energy in Norway, for instance, is from water.
> Yeah, and your electricity that powers your car is still made mostly from fossil fuels in most parts of the world, or nuclear energy which is not too hot with the general public nowadays. It's nice to be blind.
Right now, yes, most electricity probably comes from fossil fuels but assuming that burning fossil fuels in cars direct vs burning them in power plants are the same is extremely naive. I'll allow Bill Nye the Science guy to explain: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1169817881
TL;DR: It's a lot easier to burn FF's cleaner at 1 location than fix it for every car on the market (which will be outdated in terms of it's "clean tech" as soon as it comes off the line while a factory can be continuously upgraded with the best available).
The goal of driving (for most) is to get from A to B, not entertainment. I agree, I loved my manual car but the masses prefer the convenience of automatic which is why manual cars continue to disappear.
Electric cars will eventually replace petrol cars, it's a fact.
> Electric cars will eventually replace petrol cars, it's a fact.
No, it's one of the potential future scenarii, but certainly not the only one. It will be a fact when it has actually happened.
It's just like people predicting the death of the PC and its total replacement by tablets - but hey, after several years of tremendous tablet growth, looks like 2014 was not so hot.
> The goal of driving (for most) is to get from A to B, not entertainment
Sure, I agree. but having an automatic car is a barely better experience than a petrol car in that regard. Sign me up when the self driving cars are out, but until then driving in heavy traffic will suck no matter what.
Is this what passes for clever? It's hardly a "tech" article, that's for sure.
>The engine was also extremely hot, we burned ourselves when we touched it.
Electric motors run cold, I guess?
>We started calculating price versus consumption and came to the shocking conclusion that a petrol car costs unimaginable €12 per 100km! Sure, electric cars could also theoretically come up to these amounts if they quick charged at one of the most expensive charging stations in the country – but for petrol cars there are no cheaper alternatives!
You can buy a $12,000 gas car, but for electric cars there are no cheaper alternatives. Work that into the cost vs a $100,000 Tesla. The 99% of the world are not complete idiots; electric cars aren't mainstream yet.
> for electric cars there are no cheaper alternatives
Not true at all. I traded in a Subaru WRX and pay less for my Leaf every month than I did for the Subaru. Not to mention the savings on the costs of driving it around.
> The 99% of the world are not complete idiots; electric cars aren't mainstream yet.
These two phrases don't necessarily have anything to do with each other.
It's true, there are good reasons why EVs aren't mainstream. One is that if you're in an apartment or condominium EV ownership is pretty much out the window unless you can get your property managers to install charging stations.
Another is that you can't get one with 200 mile range for under $60k right now, and that's a big hurdle for most people to get over mentally. Even though most people don't drive more than 80 miles in a day, and a Leaf WOULD do just fine for them, they can't bring themselves to act rationally about it. Being that close to their limit is a mental block. That's why it's important that Tesla delivers on the promise to offer a $30k 200 mile range car in 2017.
Now, all of that has nothing to do with the original article. The point of which is really that EVs are way, way nicer than petrol cars, for a variety of reasons. Which is something that most people just don't get yet.
"Which is something that most people just don't get yet."
Yes, yes, and more yes.
People still don't really understand electric cars yet. They see an EV as a sacrifice. They think that you buy an EV either to save money on gas or out of some vague sense of environmental responsibility. They don't understand that they are just plain better.
Right now, gas cars offer three advantages over EVs: there's more variety in the market, they're cheaper, and they go farther. These are not insignificant advantages, of course, but people don't realize that EVs are equal or better in all other respects.
It's coming around now that EVs are getting more exposure, and especially since Tesla keeps getting so much attention for producing a car that's good on its own merits, and not merely good "for an EV."
The other side of this is that people are blind to the problems of gas cars, because they've grown up with them. One of the biggest problems people see with EVs is charging. But if you hadn't grown up with gas vehicles, the idea of seeking out a specialized filling station once every week or two and then dispensing dangerous, toxic liquid fuel from an apparatus that doesn't even seal it off from the outside would seem completely mad. You have to do a complete change of the engine lubricant how often? The windshield wiper fluid cap is in the same compartment as components that get hot enough to cause serious burns? Every time you slow down you just throw away all your kinetic energy, and grind down your brake pads while you're doing it? This is clearly not a viable technology.
>These are not insignificant advantages, of course, but people don't realize that EVs are equal or better in all other respects.
With regards to going farther...um, no? Not only can I hop on the highway with a full tank of gas and head out to a rural area a couple hundred miles away for camping/whatever, I have no need to worry about whether or not I'll run out of gas because of the gas station's ubiquity. It's going to be a long time before the same can be said for EVs. Being tethered to a Tesla-approved route isn't an viable excuse either.
Why do you reply with "um, no?" and then go off talking about the EV's range troubles when my post clearly stated that range is an aspect of EVs that's still inferior...?
>You have to do a complete change of the engine lubricant how often?
Usually not very often. I only need to do it once every 10,000 miles. There is a widely held myth that you must do it more often but its just that - a myth. Modern cars can go very long time without an oil change, check the owner's manual for your car to know how long.
I don't believe you are painting a clear picture of the average person's "mental block." Most people I know would love to own a EV but they "aren't there yet" for most people I know.
I drive very little on a day to day basis. Very very little. That's great for someone who only needs to drive to work and run errands in town. (Me). I pretty much never leave town day-to-day. The big issue is I make a lot of road trips around the East Coast on the weekends - so I need my car to have a very long range once in a while and I make enough road trips were it isn't economically feasible to rent a long range car once a month (or so) for that. It also isn't economically feasible to buy a second vehicle and pay all the ownership costs of that. My spouse and I carpool, we both work in town and it makes sense economically and ecologically to only own one car. The minor inconvenience of it is more than worth it. If I were to get an EV I'd have to also buy a second car.
Seriously, I would love to own an EV - absolutely love to.
Plus many people live in apartments and park on public streets.
Range is why we don't have an electric car yet. They are great for urban dwellers but for people that live out 'in the country' range is a serious issue. We only go in to town once a week or so and that is a 50 mile round trip if we make no extra stops. To go to the 'city' which happens once a month or so a round trip easily crosses the 100 mile range and can top 150 miles with dinner added in. A trip to a real metro area would easily cross the 250 mile mark.
If Tesla can deliver a 'real' 200 mile car for a reasonable price it would be worth considering. But for a significant percentage of the rural population EVs are simply not an option at this point.
Rural population is <20% of the total population of the US, so in the scheme of things I don't think this matters much. It sucks to be on the wrong side of that, but Tesla doesn't have to cater to every market.
You don't need to be truly rural for EV range to be an issue. While I couldn't use one as my only vehicle, Tesla's range would work pretty well for me although it's a ~$100K car when all is said and done--which is what I think the parent meant when he referred to "affordable." The options that are relatively affordable today only get about 80 miles on a charge which really isn't a lot unless you're driving around a pretty local area.
I live about an hour outside the local metropolis which is close enough to go in routinely for the evening and I couldn't take an 80 mile range car in.
> It's true, there are good reasons why EVs aren't mainstream. One is that if you're in an apartment or condominium EV ownership is pretty much out the window unless you can get your property managers to install charging stations.
State laws are coming online that require property managers to install charging stations if they're above a certain size. California's law is already in effect with regard to this.
Electric motors don't need much service (and when they do, it's highly complicated) so there's no need to provide access to it. People occasionally ask to see the motor in my Model S, and the best I can do is point to the rear seats and say "it's under there." There's nothing on the car that you can burn yourself on that you can get to without tools.
And did you really say that there are no cheaper alternatives for an electric car than a $100,000 Tesla? You might want to have a look at what's actually available, if that's what you actually meant to say.
>And did you really say that there are no cheaper alternatives for an electric car than a $100,000 Tesla? You might want to have a look at what's actually available, if that's what you actually meant to say.
If you want an electric car with 200+ mile range, what are the alternatives?
You can buy a 2013 used Nissan Leafs with under 10k miles for under $12k. That is comparable to a gas car. The low range on the Leaf really affects their value.
I drive a Leaf. It's actually a really great city car. I use it for all my driving (commute, shopping, exploring the city) except for one trip a month I make in my old gas car. The car basically pays for itself compared to what I paid in gas in my old car. It's also almost zero maintenance, which is a huge plus coming from my old under 12k gas car which needed oil, random part replacements, cooling system issues, etc. Worth considering if you drive less than 60 miles a day, imo.
Same here. We've had a leaf for about 8 months now and love it. We're in a suburban setting where most of our mileage is shuttling teenage kids to/from school and other activities. If your range needs are a match, it's a fantastic run-around car. With a 240V/30A charger in the garage, we can get much more than 100 miles out of it on busy days.
If you need more range, there's a pricier BMW that get's almost twice as far on a charge.
Once a week we go somewhere which is a 50 mile round trip. I thought the 70 mile range was cutting it too close. Otherwise the price is very attractive now that I will move to a place with an actual garage so I can charge it.
Wait, you're comparing a NEW ICE car with 200+ range, warranty, etc to a tiny ~40 mile range USED EV with a battery pack on its last legs (battery pack capacity drops begin at around 10 to 15k and continue from there). Real world range in traffic, climate control on, etc is not the advertised number. Its not even close. Search the Leaf forums if you don't believe me.
Not to mention, after Fed and State rebates, there's $10,000 off the cost, which is affecting its resale value. Give me $10,000 for an ICE car and I'll show you a near free car with 4x the range, a warranty, etc.
Where are you getting this information? A 15K mile Leaf would typically have lost at most 5-10% of its original capacity (one "pip" on the health meter), and have a 70-90 mile range. My daily driver is a 2012 Leaf -- over 3 years old and I can still get over 100 miles between charges. I paid about $12K for it, fully loaded SL trim.
Nissan's battery comes with two warranties: an 8-year 100K mile warranty against defects, and a 5-year 60K mile warranty against capacity loss. Even a 2011 Leaf with 50K miles on it will have at least 70% of its original range, but most have much more. Batteries don't degrade nearly as fast as you think they do.
Tesla put out information about the original Roadster battery health a while back. That's a car that's been on the road long enough that owners have put a lot of miles (and charge cycles) on them. They averaged only 15% capacity loss after 100,000 miles. That was with even older battery tech. A couple year old EV is not "on its last legs".
It's pretty amazing how much disinformation is out there with regards to EV batteries. There are a lot of misconceptions about degradation, environmental impact of manufacturing, and toxicity. I think there must be a concerted effort going on to deliberately misinform people, as is the case with e.g. climate change. (Not blaming anyone here for being part of that effort to deliberately misinform people, but there are probably victims of it here.)
The results of an Idaho National Laboratory study released in March found that the test LEAFs lost 22-26% of their initial capacity after just 40,000 miles.
Frankly, I'm burned out by the bullshit EV enthusiasts push out on these forums. EVs suck now and there's nothing on the horizon to say otherwise. Tesla is losing money hand over foot and no one is buying EVs. Sorry guys, time to call a spade a spade here. Building our non-ICE dreams on Lithium-Ion just doesn't make sense. We need a better fuel/storage source to compete with ICE.
I like how I have to provide sources yet the people making EXTRAORDINARY claims like "omg affordable EVs will be here in 12-24 months" are never, ever called out on their bullshit. Its been 12-24 months out for years. The sad fact that I provide real proof and skepticism leads to -5 downvotes shows you how immature and silly HN forums on are many hot topic issues, which EV seems to be here.
edit: to the guy below me who wrote ""EVs suck now" not even close. Full disclosure: I own a Model S. It is the envy of everyone I show it to."
Yeah, $100,000 cars tend to be impressive, but why am I paying for YOUR car via increasing my tax load? Take away the tax breaks and lets see Elon try to compete.
> The results of an Idaho National Laboratory study released in March found that the test LEAFs lost 22-26% of their initial capacity after just 40,000 miles...Frankly, I'm burned out by the bullshit EV enthusiasts push out on these forums.
From your link:
> One of the most important variables in battery longevity is temperature. In general, temperatures above 86 degrees F place great stress on the battery and speed up capacity loss. Vehicles that have a liquid-cooled battery, like the Chevrolet Volt or Tesla Model S, are less vulnerable to high-temperature effects as long as they are not parked in the blazing sun. However, the Nissan LEAF may be notably susceptible to rapid degradation in extremely hot climates. The results of an Idaho National Laboratory study released in March found that the test LEAFs lost 22-26% of their initial capacity after just 40,000 miles. This is most attributable to two factors: the vehicles were tested in Pheonix, where the hot climate accelerated capacity decline; and the vehicles were discharged to less than 5% capacity twice per day.
I'm not seeing how a number derived from deliberately-abusive worst-case scenario of a known-inferior approach is relevant to discussions of future EVs.
(If anything, that sounds pretty good - the worst-case scenario for one of the cheapest ones out on the market right this second is only 1/5th capacity loss? I would have expected it to be much worse.)
30% capacity loss is generally considered EOL for battery packs. (And that typically happens at 1000 complete charge-discharge cycles.) The Volt should have gone 1000 * 380 miles = 380K miles before hitting that.
On paper, I wanted a Leaf over a Volt, but the real world difference shows that differing battery technology still matters a lot. I dunno how Nissan built such a bad pack but there you go.
> The Volt should have gone 1000 * 380 miles = 380K miles before hitting that.
And might have if not subjected to worst-case conditions which EV drivers do not subject their cars to. What are the real-world results in terms of battery capacity declining? They don't seem to be anywhere near that.
So again, as I already said in my first comment, I'm not seeing how this is really relevant - much less some sort of fatal proof.
Real world facts: LEAFs tested in Phoenix and discharged to under 5% capacity twice a day lost 22-26% of their initial capacity after just 40,000 miles.
That's basically the worst case scenario and it still doesn't come anywhere close to supporting your claim of "on its last legs" at only 10,000 miles on the clock.
Personally I think the LEAF's lack of active thermal management for the battery is a serious mistake, and your link reflects that. But even then it's not nearly as bad as you said. With more normal use in a more normal climate it'll be vastly better still.
"EVs suck now" not even close. Full disclosure: I own a Model S. It is the envy of everyone I show it to. There are a lot of articles out there talking about how it's an awesome car. Those articles are wrong: it's far better than they say. The only objections people can come up with to it are based in fiction. "What if you want to do a road trip?" Well, I take advantage of the vast supercharger network. "What about battery degradation?" The battery was engineered to last 10 years and reports from the fleet so far is that they're doing better than expected. "Is it hard to find places to charge it?" No, it's really easy, because I charge it in my garage every day and never have to charge anywhere else in normal driving.
"Tesla is losing money hand over foot" is another example of this concerted campaign of anti-EV disinformation. They make a healthy profit selling cars. (Average profit per car is something like 28%.) That profit just gets poured into capital expenditures rather than being returned to the shareholders at the moment, because they're trying to expand at a rapid pace.
There are a variety of sources of lithium wear, cherry picking the most attractive is just disingenious.
The results of an Idaho National Laboratory study released in March found that the test LEAFs lost 22-26% of their initial capacity after just 40,000 miles.
> Is this what passes for clever? It's hardly a "tech" article, that's for sure.
I read it with a smirk, I thought it was a nicely done parody. In a few decades when your average 25 year old has never known a petrol driven car (yes yes this might not happen) it is a believable experience.
Is it even a parody? It's written from the perspective of somebody who doesn't yet exist: a person who has only known electric cars for their whole life. But aside from that, it does a pretty good job of imagining what that person would think the first time they're exposed to a "normal" car.
That's a pretty huge assertion you are throwing in there.
I think there is a fair chance that some of the tax there is just a simple luxury tax, with accidental relief on the Tesla side (as opposed to a proper pricing of externalities).
The tax incentives in question the remove a fair portion of the tax penalty apply to all electric vehicles, not just Tesla. The "relief" for Tesla isn't accidental.
I would say you'd be correct if the benefits applied solely to Tesla vehicles, but not in this case.
My meaning was more that it depends on how well the laws captured the intent of the societies.
The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is).
> The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is)
I could not find the answer to this with some quick googling. I too would be interested in the answer.
If the externalities they're pricing in are oil consumption in the vehicle, and the vehicle doesn't burn oil, setting the taxes to zero is "proper pricing".
That's not the only externality; another one is wear-and-tear on roads. In most countries, fuel taxes are used in part to pay for road and highway maintenance [1]. Certainly Norway's extensive, mountainous highway system is not free to build and maintain, and imo all road users should pay their share to fund it. You could have a direct per-km tax enforced via some kind of GPS unit, but that has privacy implications. Traditionally the fuel tax was a reasonable proxy, since vehicles used fuel in rough proportion to the amount of road traversed.
The vast majority of road wear and tear is caused by trucks, not cars:
"Heavy trucks obviously cause more road damage than cars, but how much more? According to a GAO study, Excessive Truck Weight: An Expensive Burden We Can No Longer Afford, road damage from one 18-wheeler is equivalent to 9600 cars (p.23 of study, p.36 of PDF)."
With regards to your point to taxes, remove the per-milage tax and charge a flat per-vehicle rate based on vehicle class, distributing the cost to trucks more than to passenger vehicles.
The costs are added to all gas cars, and "normal people" are subsidizing all electric cars. The cars that are selling just happen to be the most expensive electric car.
Contrived to the point of stupid so the point is lost.
Really, this could have just as well been written in the early 1900s with a moron buying a car when a perfectly good horse was available.
Two problems still exist with electric only cars they haven't shown are solvable. Truly fast charging and handling of that "damnit, the son forgot to plug the car in when he got home and I need to go to work/doctor/etc NOW" and lack of available charging for large number of potential drivers. Want to be silly like the article, don't get snowed in without power for days on end that still happens in North America.
As for repair shops at dealers, well being able to have your car repaired and serviced anywhere is a good thing. Just happens that Tesla does its best to hide the service issues by keeping it mostly internal.
So yeah electrics are cool, leaning towards a ER EV myself simply because I have to travel on my schedule and not my cars
It's not contrived. All the points you mentioned about the downsides of EV are true. That's why they're a single digit percentage of the market right now at best.
The point of this article is to point out the compromises that we are currently making. They're invisible to us because they are the compromises we have been making for generations. I can imagine a 538 article that illustrates how much land we allocate to gas stations using several graphs. For some people that article will be interesting. Other people's eyes will glaze over. This kind of article uses humor to make the same point.
I don't own an electric vehicle. I'm very aware of the advantages of electric vehicles for society at large, but reading about how funny it is to not be able to store things in the front of the car made me realize how much of a feature that really would be. Reading about his concern that an gasoline powered car is less safe because you have a giant engine in front of you made sense to me in a way I previously hadn't thought about.
He didn't even make a bunch of other points that I often think about - like the level of soot in cities. Our children will probably look back at us the way we look back at London in 1850 shrouded in coal dust.
You just barely missed the point of the article. They are parodying the EV reviews that "could have just as well been written in the early 1900s with a moron buying a car when a perfectly good horse was available."
I could be wrong about this, but I think it is referring to a specific review of a Tesla test-drive from a few years back. It doesn't seem quite so contrived with that in mind, and the point is also more clear.
I just watched a video comparing the Dodge Charger Hellcat to a Tesla P-85d. Both have similar power, and while you can debate the level of quality of FCA vs Tesla you can still drive a Hellcat(which is an insane gas guzzler) for less money for 5-7 years depending on your yearly mileage. At that point, most people will likely purchase a new vehicle, and that is also assuming you only use free superchargers. A Tesla is definitely a luxury item, I get that, and there are other options. The problem is most current other options are more like the electric cars 20 years ago than a tesla.
Progress is being made and I am excited about that. I would love to have an electric commuter car as long as it could meet the following criteria.
1) seat 5 people comfortably 2) have 150+ miles of range(I drive about 120 miles per day) 3) cost between 30-50k 4) have reasonable performance(say comparable to a german sedan in that price range) 5) recharge quickly and easily, possibly have battery swap capability for the high use days 6) emphasize being a good car and not a "green" car. Im all for taking care of the environment, but will never buy a car with a 60" x 12" GREEN ECO ELECTRIC POWER emblazoned across the side.(In the same way I would never get a car that says "UBER HEMI BIG WANG POWER" either) 7) be reliable and comfortable to drive, with low cost of ownership at least comparable to a reliable petrol car.
I dont think any of that list is unreasonable, and I am glad that Tesla exists, they have done a great service to the electric car.