I'm also disappointed that the Japanese companies are falling behind. The Prius was a very innovative car when it was first released 20 years ago (that's right, the first Prius was a 1997 model!), but it is falling behind. The Nissan Leaf is just not competitive anymore, and I see no sign of a newer version of it with better range.
However, these new electric cars are mostly of interest to homeowners. People who park on the street have no realistic way to charge their cars at their homes, and all but the newest luxury apartments lack charging stations. Relying on public charging infrastructure is not realistic, and relying on charging at work is unwise -- it will limit your next job opportunity to companies that also have charging stations, unless you are willing to replace your car. Even relying on charging at an apartment is unwise, because it will limit where you can move to.
So, I guess electric car ownership is effectively another perk of home ownership.
Depends on your needs. My Leaf has been incredible. I paid $5k for an older one off lease and it gets me round trip to work/school/running errands for essentially zero marginal cost. People are stuck in an ICE mindset where they can't imagine a car being useful with less than 400 miles range. But the reality is that you never end up using a full charge, and charging is available everywhere (in cities) now. I can guarantee that there will be a class of ultra cheap EV's that stick to the 100-150 mile range as it is all most urban dwellers need on a day-to-day basis. If the price/kWh of lithium ion batteries continues falling at it's current rate, we'll see sub $20k ~150 mile range EV's for sale within 5 years.
>People who park on the street have no realistic way to charge their cars at their homes, and all but the newest luxury apartments lack charging stations. Relying on public charging infrastructure is not realistic, and relying on charging at work is unwise -- it will limit your next job opportunity to companies that also have charging stations, unless you are willing to replace your car. Even relying on charging at an apartment is unwise, because it will limit where you can move to.
Not really. I live in a tiny Bay Area apartment and street park my Leaf. Charging has never been a problem. My office has level 2, there's a level 2 across the street from me, and there's two level 3's on the way home if I need a quick top off. Granted we have better infrastructure than most, and I'll admit there's definitely some getting used to how it all works, but I'll never go back to an ICE.
Other random thought. Someone that has charging at work, does not need to charge their car at home. Which emphasizes the idea that an electric car owner just needs charging to somewhat ubiquitous. Charger at work, charger at the store, charger at a parking lot, coffee shop, etc.
http://www.caradvice.com.au/581046/2018-nissan-leaf-revealed...
From: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/5/16254460/nissan-leaf-2018-...
I still want a 20 gallon gas tank and a lot of filling stations.
Perhaps there could be combined parking meters and charging stations. You would pay a certain amount of money if you just wanted to park and you would pay more if you wanted to charge your car too.
Something I find interesting: There are cities investigating adding chargers that blend in to lamp posts (especially historic lamp posts where adding meters would be unwanted in a historic neighborhood).
Also imagine solar covered parking which could be a good moneymaker (sell energy and/or sell preferred parking spots).
Don't forget that GM had not only terminated all leases then went out of their way to crush all their EV1s[1]. Like a public execution to show that electric cars are bad.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
Revenge of the Electric Car [2] is a great follow-up to Who Killed the Electric Car.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Electric_Car
It's another chicken-and-egg bootstrapping problem, though. If everyone had electric cars, there would be more market demand for electrified street parking, and there would be more demand for electric parking spaces in apartment complexes. At some point it becomes less of a market differentiator (luxury apartments use it to stay competitive) and increasingly a market force (every apartment needs it to stay relevant).
Given the pace that the car manufacturers seem to be moving, that transition likely needs to start happening sooner rather than later. (2023 is six years from now.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/london-street-lamps...
Granted, a full electric charge doesn't last as long as a full tank of gas, but that's going to be decreasingly relevant as battery technology improves.
If I remember right, the stats for the Bolt were that (when empty) it can charge 100mi of range in 30 minutes, but after that the charge rate falls off quickly, and a full charge actually takes much longer than you'd expect.
If you get unlucky and get to a charge point but the charger is occupied, you're going to be waiting up to 30 mins to get a 30 min charge, taking an hour to gain 100mi range. If I'm on a longer drive, that's just not something I want to put up with.
Imagine going skiing at a place that's 100mi away. It's winter, so you're running the heater in the car, and the ski resort is inherently uphill from where you live, so you use more than 50% of the car's range to get there. When you get to the ski resort, early arrivers have already filled up the chargers. So now you have to park somewhere else (possibly a shuttle ride away from the lifts), and come back off the mountain at lunch see if a charger is available, fetch your car, maybe hang around until the others actually move their cars off the chargers, etc. Ugh. Sorry, but I don't want to be the early adopter in that situation, and I'm wondering if there will be enough chargers to make the problem disappear once EV adoption is high. Range extenders in the car make a lot of sense to me.
If I could get a full charge at a charging station in the amount of time it takes to fill up a gas tank, it would not be a problem to drive to a charging station the same way I drive to gas stations now. But a full charge on an electric car takes hours, even with fast charging.
No gas stations, no oil changes, no transmission failures, no engine breakdowns, no timing belt, no transaxles, overall less costs even energy wise.
Also it's got amazing pickup and can beat guzzlers off the line (I've edged out Mustangs, but I haven't gone head to head with a Porsche).
So I have to charge every day - great, same with my iPhone (which, amusingly, is increasingly more important than my car - I can always hire a Lyft/Uber with my phone).
I think the electric revolution is like the SSD one - 10 years ago it was "unreliable" but today no one goes spinning rust unless they have absolute need to.
I also have it charging often at charge spots at work, shopping, and even when I drive to visit local customers. I noticed a recent 90m trip we took our minivan, but my electric could have done it - the hotel we stayed in had chargers. If you're staying with relatives, you can bring your own charge cable (110v is slow but ubiquitous).
Range anxiety is a non issue once you own a car that has sufficient battery capacity/range assuming you have a regular commute.
I've gotten it down to 5% battery - it was 5.5m over the listed range of 110m at the time (not being lead-foot at the time).
I think the PHEV -> EV shift is a significant paradigm shift for a driver.
Buy a vehicle with 150% of your maximum daily range and you're fine. Lease if you're even more concerned.
With my driving pattern, I end up driving on pre-charged electric 50% of the time and gas about 50% of the time. On gas, the car gets the advertised 42mpg.
I thought the Voltec drivetrain would be great in a minivan, but apparently GM engineers say it won't work in heavier cars [0].
[0] https://www.autoblog.com/2010/04/22/gms-randd-head-says-volt...
Just like Leica dropped the ball on moving on to Digital Cameras, General Motors was slow to get on the Electric Vehicles bandwagon.
> "General Motors believes the future is all-electric," says Mark Reuss, the company’s head of product. "We are far along in our plan to lead the way to that future world."
Glad to see that they are going all-in.
They've also been working with gas-electric mixed technology with the Volt since 2010 and more recently the Bolt.
I read about one city that discontinued a program where electric car owners could reserve a spot on the street and install a charging station. But that is inefficient use for a parking spot that may be empty most of the day.
[0] By "town houses", I mean houses that share the walls on either side with their neighbors; they are lined up side by side. You see them often in dense urban areas. There is no place for a driveway and rarely is precious real estate used for a garage.
Unless they make some significant technological strides, nations larger than Norway are going to take a serious economic hit.
They also aren't converting to all electric right now, they're rolling out some new electric models and are planning to eventually stop building gas-burning cars. If that doesn't happen for another ten or twenty years, we can probably expect some significant improvements in battery capacity per unit of mass and cost in that time.
According to Google maps, Austin to Dallas is 195 miles, LA to SF is 382 miles, and Austin to Tulsa is 454 miles.
~200 mile road trips are possible now with current technology. There aren't any electric pickups on the market as far as I know, but it should be possible (though expensive) with current technology for an electric truck to make the trip if it had a battery that's sized appropriately for that kind of use.
~400 mile road trips are a bit too far for a single battery charge at highway speeds without some kind of new technology or a vehicle that's optimized for range over other concerns, but I wouldn't want be driving that long without a break anyways. I expect if there's a market for that kind of vehicle, someone will build it eventually.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/supercharger
[2] http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-x-hauling-freight-ca-hi...
And that's the great part. Things are improving, and the rate of improvement is quickening too.
Though I don't own a Tesla, they're to be commended for bringing long-range EV travel to reality.
> The new all-electric models will be a mix of battery electric cars and fuel cell-powered vehicles.
They don't specify whether the fuel cells will be hydrogen or something else, but it may be premature to say that Detroit has given up on hydrogen as a fuel.
Uh, call that for small, mostly urban, pregnant roller skate cars but not much for SUVs or light trucks and certainly not for the main uses of Diesel in long haul 18 wheel trucks, backhoes, earth moving equipment, boats, etc. "Vehicles" is way too strong, has the authors dreaming.
Also, so far the recharging time is too long for nearly everyone. And for rural drivers, mostly "No way"; they still need gasoline, put in 20 gallons in a few minutes.
