Some thoughts on the future of automotive EVs

[JackFlorey]

Every point you tried to make was false.

Yep.

I've had three EVs by this point. No EV related problems at all. No required maintenance. Well, one was a PHEV, so I did have to change the oil once every 30,000 miles or so, but I am thinking of increasing that to 60,000 miles because the last time I did it, the old oil looked identical to the new oil I put in. I'll often go two months with no gas engine operation.

Only other maintenance required was for one of them a rat chewed on some wires; replaced them pretty easily. Oh and new tires of course.

I've had the solar power system I have today for 15 years now, and the previous owner had it for 10. No problems. No cleanings. I may replace the inverters just because they're loud (they are 25 years old after all) but no hurry there since they are still working just fine. The system on my old house is still operating 21 years later, and again the only problem is that the inverter display is all yellowed from being in the sun. But it still keeps putting out the power.

I often get the feeling that some people read right wing news sources, repost what they read, and never think about it or bother to verify the scare stories.

 

[DaLanMan]

Im sure you are aware that insurance premiums are not soley dependant on if the car is an iCE or an EV .
Together with many other factors, premiums are rated on the claim History of each model and vehicles with a “performance” character ( such as an M5) , will automatically draw a higher premium and the insurers will have the data to justify it.
A hybrid on the other hand,.…(which model is it btw ?)…is unlikely to be considerd to be in the “performance” catagory.

Yeah, I have a nearly prestine driving record. I had one car taken out in a parking lot of a grocery store (I have to Say, the grocery chain was really nice about the whole thing, they had a rental car to me before the cops were done) and a bunch of speeding tickets before I turned 18.... which for those of you who are within a decade of that.... Means dick all at this point, my annual driving of under 3500 miles in any given vehicle helps a bunch (see prior comment about the fleet) it is still pricey to cover the m5, but I think I would prefer to lose a limb.. me and that girl have history...

my daily driver is the 2015 active hybrid 5, paid cash, took it for a spin and realised... yeah, the hybrid is *NOT* for fuel economy, the slight delay on acceleration was weird, but I am used to it now, have never bothered to program it out. and it off the line is mebbe a 1/10th slower than the m5 next to it, and that beast has 750hp...

then there is the 2003 amg...
The super burban (super charged LS1)
::

Don't judge me.. yer not my supervisor...

 

[harrisonpatm]

I often get the feeling that some people read right wing news sources, repost what they read, and never think about it or bother to verify the scare stories.

Yeah, that's confirmation bias for you. Really rampant on the internet, really easy for everything you encounter online to just be a sounding board for your already-exiting opinions and experiences. It can also be pretty difficult to recognize confirmation bias within yourself. Why bother to check the facts of an article that is already making a point that you agree with?

"I think EV's are dumb and dangerous, so here's the data I have to back it up, your data must be flawed." That's confirmation bias.

"I think EV's are incredibly safe and statistically less likely to catch fire than ICE vehicles, so here's the first 3 Google hits for articles that support that belief, all of which site the same AutoInsuranceEZ piece." Also confirmation bias.

Questioning data isn't right wing. I also think EV's are safer and require less maintenance than ICE cars. I prefer them, for plenty of reasons that are backed partially by some data and some personal experience. But that's my opinion, not a universal truth.

My personal experience: I have personally owned 4 ICE cars in the past 15 years, 4 different manufacturers and makes. None of them were bought new. I have had zero major engine maintenance issues with any of them, even though they're old cars. Should I conclude that ICE cars require zero maintenance? Of course not, that would be silly and reductionist.

I've had my home solar setup for a year now. I've had to get up on the roof and reconnect cables twice, I've had to fix two roof leaks from the installation, one of my charge controllers (bought new) had a programming failure and needed to be replaced, and my inverter puts out only 80% of the power it was advertised to provide. Should I conclude that solar is a waste of money, and a pain to operate and maintain, and bad for the environment? No, that would be also silly and reductionist.

Google something like, "can you use Li-ion batteries discharged below 1.5V per cell?" You will get overwhelming response saying what a bad idea that is, that capacity is irreversibly and immediately damaged, don't bother, it's a waste of time. Well, that hasn't been my experience at all, quite the opposite. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go on a PR spree over every forum I'm on to tell people that they're wrong. There's way to much nuance and variable to boil my experiences down to a simple statement like "Lithium batteries can be safely discharged below 1.5V." Just like there's way too much nuance and variable to universally state something like "EV's are safer." And questioning such an idea doesn't make one right-wing.

Therefore, while I agree with @JackFlorey in principle, it would probably be more accurate to say something like:
"I often get the feeling that some people read right wing any news sources, repost what they read, and never think about it or bother to verify the scare stories opinion piece.

 

[Hillhater]

I've had three EVs by this point. No EV related problems at all. No required maintenance.

are you saying , (as Nicobie did ), that they needed NO attention.. even though they do have regular service intervals !
Every vehicle requires regular maintenance checks,..not just oil changes etc.. but items like brake pad checks, fluid levels, suspension checks, tire condition/ damage, filter changes, etc….its called “preventitive maintenance”
Any vehicle, EV or ICE will have most of those same areas of wear and concern, so to pretend an EV is “maintenance free” is a false belief.
And those checks are not just to ensure reliability of the car, but also to ensure the safety of other road users.

German-based rental car company Sixt has announced that it’s phasing out Tesla electric rental cars from its fleets because of reduced resale costs.

Sixt isn’t the first rental car company to push back on EVs. A few months ago, Hertz announced that its EV rentals were a money loser, with many of the benefits extolled by EV advocates never materializing. The cars broke down more often than expected and were more expensive to repair than the comparable ICE car.

 

[neptronix]

Prerequisites for me to own an electric car:
- The cars must get dramatically lighter as a function of improved chemistry. I don't want to ever work on a >4000lbs car.
- The cars must have good aftermarket support and not repair-walled like Teslas.
- The cars must be produced in sufficient volumes that, if i'm feeling lazy, i can easily locate a mechanic. I've owned low production number cars before, and it's just not fun.
- Battery replacement costs need to either go way down, or become less frequent.
- We need much safer batteries.

I'm quite happy with my Mazda 1.5 liter car w/stick shift at the moment. I see 50-60mpg on the highway while hypermiling, and drive ~6000 miles a year. I walk or bike whenever possible. I would prefer to bike everywhere, but weather and road architecture doesn't realistically allow it in my region.

I'm not driven to overlook the current shortcomings of an electric car to lower my transport's carbon footprint, mine is really low already. It would easily be a cost and footprint net negative.

At the current moment, electric cars on sale are >4000lbs and a lot larger than i like anyway. The appeal is not there for me. I want something more like an electric Miata one day; a tiny, efficient car that corners like a dream... and is also easy to wrench on

I'm personally gonna be later on the S curve of adoption and may one day just build the EV car i want out of sheer impatience.

 

[harrisonpatm]

I'm personally gonna be later on the S curve of adoption and may one day just build the EV car i want out of sheer impatience.

You and me both!

 

[Chalo]

I'm personally gonna be later on the S curve of adoption and may one day just build the EV car i want out of sheer impatience.

For me, probably a kei van conversion. I like the versatility of open bed kei trucks, but I doubt I could put the seat where I need it. And there would be no point in building a big, heavy, expensive, regulated vehicle that does mostly the same things I can already do with a laissez faire two wheeler.

I love the idea of the USA market coming around to such vehicles in my lifetime, but I really doubt that can happen before a massive all-resource crisis (by which time any cars would be an even worse waste).

 

[classicalgas]

ICE carmakers are eager to make the transition to EV's...half their supply chain will be losing their contracts in the next few years, as needs simplify. No sleeve bearings, no camshafts, no connecting rod bolts, no cam belts, no oil pumps, oil slingers or oil seals, no valves (or the shims, buckets and springs that go with them ) no main bearing caps, no fuel injectors , fuel pumps or filters ... and on and on and on... simplifying things for everyone in the company, from designers to inventory specialists.

The smart members of automaker supply chains are looking at what to pivot to, what they can make instead of ICE parts.

 

[classicalgas]

… , ….why then is an EV $15,000+ more than an equivalent ICE ?.

...They aren't. Right now the price difference is less than $5K, and dropping. Some authorities claim that EV's are within $2000 of the cost of a similar ICE

 

[Hillhater]

.They aren't. Right now the price difference is less than $5K, and dropping

It difficult to do direct ICE to EV comparisons,..ie what is the direct ICE equivalent to a Tesla M3 ?…
But a few manufacturers do make models with ICE or EV power trains..
for example Kia have the Nero ICE with a base model price of $44,950..and the EV version base model priced at $66,500 .
Hyundai sell a base model Kona ICE at $32,100,…whilst the same Kona base model EV is $54,500
Lexus UX ICE(hybrid) can be bought for under $55,000 but the cheapest EV versuon of the UX is $79,990
Mazda MX 30 ICE is $31,100, MX30 EV $62,000 .base models.

These are Au $$s, but you get the picture

 

[ARod1993]

Prerequisites for me to own an electric car:
- The cars must get dramatically lighter as a function of improved chemistry. I don't want to ever work on a >4000lbs car.
- The cars must have good aftermarket support and not repair-walled like Teslas.
- The cars must be produced in sufficient volumes that, if i'm feeling lazy, i can easily locate a mechanic. I've owned low production number cars before, and it's just not fun.
- Battery replacement costs need to either go way down, or become less frequent.
- We need much safer batteries.

I'm quite happy with my Mazda 1.5 liter car w/stick shift at the moment. I see 50-60mpg on the highway while hypermiling, and drive ~6000 miles a year. I walk or bike whenever possible. I would prefer to bike everywhere, but weather and road architecture doesn't realistically allow it in my region.

I'm not driven to overlook the current shortcomings of an electric car to lower my transport's carbon footprint, mine is really low already. It would easily be a cost and footprint net negative.

At the current moment, electric cars on sale are >4000lbs and a lot larger than i like anyway. The appeal is not there for me. I want something more like an electric Miata one day; a tiny, efficient car that corners like a dream... and is also easy to wrench on

I'm personally gonna be later on the S curve of adoption and may one day just build the EV car i want out of sheer impatience.

Honestly same; tbh if I could buy a PHEV with AWD and a manual transmission I'd just do that for the foreseeable future, and then move to a full EV later if/when I end up owning a home with a place to stash and charge it. Like my ideal for an EV would be something like a kei truck/bakfiets with 2-4 seats, two front wheels, 250-300kW, 1-2 Costco shopping carts worth of storage capacity, and a top speed around 90-100mph (to let me keep up on the highway), and my ideal overall would be to have a vehicle like that for recreation/shopping/hauling shit, and then live somewhere with good enough public transit that I don't actually need to drive most places.

 

[Hillhater]

Honestly same; tbh if I could buy a PHEV with AWD and a manual transmission I'd just do that……..

Why manual transmission ??…
…an electric/ single speed transmission is simpler, smaller, less maintenance, less weight, ….and lower cost !
Why 250-300 kW,..? .. you only need <100kW to do 100 mph !
..a lower max power means, smaller motor, smaller inverter, smaller/less battery, less weight, ……and lower cost !
There are already PHEVs on the road that fit that spec .

 

[neptronix]

Manual transmission because CVT sucks and you can't truly coast / pulse and glide without it.
300kW because why own an electric vehicle that can't smoke a v6 car, this is Endless Sphere after all.

 

[Hillhater]

Not all PHEVs use CV transmissions ( do any even ?) the good ones just use a single speed direct drive as in a full EV.

 

[Papa]

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (the “Company” or “Hertz”) has made the strategic decision to sell approximately 20,000 electric vehicles (“EVs”) from its U.S. fleet, or about one-third of the global EV fleet. These vehicle dispositions, which were initiated in December 2023 and are expected to take place in an orderly fashion over the course of 2024, will cover multiple makes and models.EVs held for sale will remain eligible for rental within the Company’s fleet during the sales process. The Company expects to reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine (“ICE”) vehicles to meet customer demand.

 

[Hillhater]

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (the “Company” or “Hertz”) has made the strategic decision to sell approximately 20,000 electric vehicles (“EVs”) from its U.S. fleet,

I believe Sixt Rentals has made a similar decision based on higher operational costs of EVs,..maintenance, repairs, and depreciation etc.

Rental Company Sixt Will Begin Dumping Tesla Fleet Due to Repair Costs

The German rental car giant has had enough of the tanking residual values and costly fender benders.

gizmodo.com.au

 

[Comrade]

Manual transmission because CVT sucks

Some early belt designs sucked. But that's 25-30 year old news.

Toyotas have always used planetary gear CVT designs in their hybrids, which is the most reliable transmission ever made judging by the fact that you won't find any complaints about them, and the number of used Toyota hybrids with many hundreds of thousands of miles for sale for relatively high prices.

 

[fechter]

I really wanted an electric car, but I just couldn't do it at this point. They are all too expensive and drop too quickly in value. I went for a Toyota RAV4 Prime, which is a plug in hybrid. Since I got it a couple of weeks ago, I've been driving it in EV mode exclusively.
Doing the math on power consumption and given the ridiculously high cost of electricity here, it's actually cheaper to run it on gas right now. I have a solar panel system that generated excess power during the summer and I'm trying to use up my surplus kilowatt hours before the end of my yearly billing cycle. The RAV4 in pure EV mode is plenty powerful and if I need to outrun a coal rolling diesel truck, I can kick in the gas engine for something like 300hp. I wish I had installed a larger solar system, but funds were limited. I've also been using up a lot of power heating my house with an air-sourced heat pump system and have not had to burn any gas for heating all winter.

The e-CVT system on a Toyota is very reliable. Taxi drivers running Priuses beat the crap out of those things and have no failures after 250,000 miles. The 9 year old Prius that I traded in for the RAV4 got me over half the original selling price even with all the dents and scratches. I liked the Prius, but needed more cargo carrying space.

 

[neptronix]

I know Toyotas have reliable CVTs and all that.

But:
- CVTs have notably higher friction and only get better fuel ratings vs a manual because they can be in an ideal RPM always.
- Even still, a skilled hypermiler can blow away the fuel economy of a CVT thanks to being able to go into neutral.
- Consequence of the above is that you have a few % more power with a manual.
- You can't drop the clutch at 3000RPM and smoke someone with a CVT.
- CVTs have pretty tight design strengths to minimize weight and expense vs manuals.. almost guaranteed to be a weak point when increasing power.
- Due to the droning factor, the car will always sound like an appliance, and this removes the harmony of man and machine that manual transmissions provide. Mazda calls this Jinba Ittai.

I had a stick shift Honda Insight hybrid a decade ago. It was fantastic. The fuel economy i could achieve with pulse and glide was mind blowing. We give up way too much efficiency and Jinba Ittai for simple conveniences with the designs of today.


That being said i think electric single gear is still superior.. but our batteries are priced as such that i couldn't choke down the cost of an EV either.

 

[JackFlorey]

- CVTs have notably higher friction and only get better fuel ratings vs a manual because they can be in an ideal RPM always.

That's only friction based transmissions. Planetary CVT's (i.e. Toyota's) have less friction than a modern automatic (or manual) transmission.

 

[neptronix]

We can't for mechanical purposes consider an eCVT a CVT at all.
Thus my arguments above don't apply to part of Toyota's hybrid lineup.

 

[ARod1993]

Why manual transmission ??…
…an electric/ single speed transmission is simpler, smaller, less maintenance, less weight, ….and lower cost !
Why 250-300 kW,..? .. you only need <100kW to do 100 mph !
..a lower max power means, smaller motor, smaller inverter, smaller/less battery, less weight, ……and lower cost !
There are already PHEVs on the road that fit that spec .

I mean for me it's more of a personal thing; like I currently drive a manual car and (even though I know it sounds silly) I feel significantly more connected to the vehicle with a manual transmission than with automatics and CVTs I've driven; 250-300kW (comprised of 150-200kW engine output with a 100kW motor) because with the advent of Emrax the engineering work required to swap a flywheel for an axial flux motor Honda IMA-style isn't all that much. The idea would be that in start-stop traffic the engine would be doing very little work and the motor plus regenerative braking would do most of what needs doing, in situations where I want maximum acceleration up to high speeds I can use the motor for ridiculous torque from 0mph, and then on long highway drives where I'm spending most of it cruising in 6th the engine is basically doing not much work anyway, and that leaves me with a car that's:

-well under 4k lbs (preferably close to 3k-3500), with a reasonable weight distribution and decent handling (battery pack in the center toward the rear to counterbalance the engine up front).
-capable of power output on par with a 340i or similar
-engaging and fun to drive
-Gets 40-45mpg, maybe more if I do a lot of road tripping (as opposed to the 20-25mpg combined that's currently common on cars with that power output).
The idea is to have a light, fun family car that can be enjoyed on the backroads, on the track, and doing general day-to-day driving; like in theory if you were crazy you could take a Honda Beat, ditch the three cylinder, and drop in a transaxle based around that concept (but using a Fireblade engine as the basis for the design), but then I can't fit groceries or more than one other person in the car.

 

[JackFlorey]

I really wanted an electric car, but I just couldn't do it at this point. They are all too expensive and drop too quickly in value. I went for a Toyota RAV4 Prime, which is a plug in hybrid.

Yeah, my daily driver is a Prius Prime. I get one or two tanks of gas a year, so 96% of my miles are electric. My wife has a Tesla model S that we've had for ten years and that she's very happy with.

Fortunately we started with an oversized solar power system. For years we were generating more than we used even with two EVs. We just converted to a heat pump and now we're going a little negative, so it's time to add some solar.

 

[nicobie]

You have a lot of wildly specific predictions that almost certainly will not be reality in the future, but I thought this was funny. You think the same lower income families that don't mow their lawn, don't change their engine oil and drive on bald tires will maintain their old solar panel systems and old EV vehicles?

Please try not to be so rude.

 

[nicobie]

?? Volt never had a service,? no battery checks. ?
? Solar never needed attention ?… Most solar systems benefit from cleaning at least every year , and few make it that long without an inverter issue (mine certainly didnt !)
maybe you ment to say ” it never GOT any attention” ….rather than it never needed any.?

I've had my solar system for around 10 years and I've never had to do anything to it other than clean it with water every other year.