Electric Vehicle Thread!

Because you are rather selective in what you are reading.

I've explained why I think hybrids are a better solution than full electric cars.

When you have to resort to calling 17 inch screens or gullwing door innovative you are simply out of arguments.

Gullwing doors are not new and chances are they are not practical at all in confined spaces.

17 inchange console screens, great. Same thing as always, just bigger. Now if they'd make a full heads up display, that would be innovative. As it stands now brands like Ferrari do it much better because they use part of the instrument panel for showing gps info etc.

Bigger battery pack isn't innovative either.

I ddon't dislike Tesla at all, I think they really did a good job at making a car that actually looks like a luxury car unlike the Japanese that seem to think a hybrid or ev isn't allowed to look pretty but to say Tesla does everything better than all the other manufacturers, I would go that far.

 

You got something short circuiting up there. I don't see any comments from you about why those points you mentioned are so innovative.

Full electric vs hybrids: As I said I think this combines the benefits of reducing pollution and noise in highly populated areas while not having to worry about range because there is still the IC when you need it. IMO that is a more practical solution in the short to mid term.

17" center console: More of the same, still have to look to the side to use it. As I said something like what Ferrari does is much better, displaying GPS etc on the instrument panel so you can just have a quick look down just as you'd do when checking your speed. Not to mention it looks fucking ugly.


VS


"ludicrous mode'': How many times can it do that before the batteries are empty? How many laps does this car with sports car beating performance do before it runs out of juice? It's not beating anything if it runs out of juice after a couple of laps and starts overheating in a few minutes.

Yes auto pilot is great but since you're the guy saying we need to be green and cars cause too much stress then wth do we need autopilot for? Don't want to drive? Get on the public transport and we don't need to waste massive amounts of resources just so that one person can have him or herself driven to work automagically every day.

And Tesla leading the pack? Yeah because the likes of Honda haven't been doing anything since the 90's. Tesla had a wealth of information and tech developed by others to build on. Doesn't mean they didn't do a good job but really, 4wd? It's electric motors, it's not that hard. Certainly a lot easier than with IC cars. We had 4wd RC cars 20 years ago when I was a kid.

 

Innovative would be the newer cars displaying various information projected on the windscreen of the car, including navigation. I have to agree that a huge screen isn't innovative.

Ironically the newer Prius' have HUD already (though limited compared to say Cadillac)

 

According to Robert Llewellyn (sorry can't find the link at the moment), even if the electricity is generated by a coal-fired plant, there is less CO2 produced by an electric vehicle than the equivalent ICE. <shrug>

Just as devil's advocate, judging by the instantaneous fuel consumption display in my vehicle when even accelerating at medium throttle, I can't imagine the fuel economy/range of an ICE car is going to be anywhere near that of the typical average once you start trying to do the same.... and at least with the electric you get a bit of it back when you hit the anchors at the other end.

 

I think the tesla is a bit of a game changer and props to them for that. But they need to fix the stupid center console controls and put a better interior in the car and better seats in the car before they can part a 100 grand from me. Also range needs to be in the high 300 miles on a full charge for me to even consider giving up my 2012 VW gti or my 2016 porsche spyder. We drive a lot so an all electric car is the ticket so a model 3 is very lucrative. I await with much anticipation it will be the car I want it to be!

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That's exactly why hybrids have a head start in terms of market share. But the market is big and there's no one size fits all approach. Hybrids have additional trade-offs and costs that some people don't need and don't want to pay.

Currently, public transport only solves part of the problem of getting people where they want to go in an efficient, convenient and timely manner. In many ways, small autonomous units are a much better fit for the problem of local transport than big buses/trams/subways are (long distance trains are a different matter).

 

Grall, cars will go when we invent teleporting machines or at least compact flying boot
I myself often wonder why we see so many SUV's driven by one person in big cities? I get it that people need to commute but doing it in SUV is purely for showing off, as it's not practical at all. I drive compact BMW 3 series, but I carry all my tools and equipment with me all the time. Smaller car is usually lighter and therefore more efficient. Some people need bigger cars and I have nothing against it, just don't buy SUV if you have family of 1 and only commute to work and back.

 

There's an interesting report here that gives ICE/Hybrid equivalence to the region of electricity generation.



So, if you're buying a new car in Australia, its nearly twice a beneficial to be buying a modern hybrid than an outright electric.

I think there is still a long way to go with Hybrids, and F1 is the proving ground for that at the moment - with the introduction of the 1.6L Hybrid Turbo's (replacing normally aspirated 2.4L V8's from a few years back) they cut fuel usage by 50%, increased top speeds, increased acceleration (thanks to the torque of the electric motors) are close to achieving 50% thermal efficiency and are close to hitting 1000HP in total (in fact regulations are aiming for it next year). They say that if the levels of efficiency F1 Hybrids are achieving were applied to road cars the average efficiency would be 165mpg, which would make it more efficient to drive one of these in all countries bar two, according to the chart above.

 

Very interesting...and a bit depressing. I may have missed it, but it didn't seem to mention/factor in charging overnight when there is often an oversupply of electricity.

From my understanding (eg Fully Charged vlogs), EV/PHEVs seem to use about 0.3kWh/km in real world driving when in electric mode. There was a comment attached to the article saying "DEFRA claim UK grid mix is around 500g/kW" thus equating to 150g/km. It's a bit disappointing but, still, considerably better than what a number of vehicles achieve with the standard "synthetic" tests which virtually no car ever achieves in practice.

 

What I am envisioning for the future of transport in cities is a fleet of self-driving electric taxis, not privately owned cars. Not having to fit the latter in enables you to use roads in a very different way, and you can have all the things you list above without losing the convenience of fast, powered, comfortable and reliable point-to-point transit.

These self-driving taxis don't need highway speeds thus they can be lightweight, efficient, extremely safe for pedestrians and cyclists to be around. They're space efficient as they're used much more often than private cars, not parked for half a day. They could easily be narrow enough (and driving accurately enough) to fit two next to each other in what is today a single lane. You could get rid of most traffic signals, hugely speeding up traffic flow, and at the same time they get you from A to B without stops, changes or long wait times unlike buses/trams/subways. They simply route around blockages, they go where and when people want to go. Being light means they're also light on road maintenance unlike big buses, and you don't need new hugely expensive infrastructure like tunnels and subway stations.

 

I think a hybrid form where automatically driven cars can hook up to each other for additional efficiency so that they become like trains could be very efficient.

Right now public transport loses a lot because of the inefficiency of driving to and from a station. I mitigate that a lo by using a folding bike (efficient also because it saves time exercising ) but that's the biggest bottleneck. Capacity is another. If just 10% of car drivers switch to public transport that would cause chaos and require big capacity investments.

So turning cars into modular, self driving and automatically connecting train components could work really well.

 

The report notes that this is calculated on average power, so there are local variances with peak/off-peak that could assist the overall.

Truck "platooning" trials are already underway.

 

I'm seeing a lot of suggestions here that sound marvellous for people who live in cities - cities well connected by convenient and efficient public transport links.

What about everybody else?

 

LaFerrari, Porsche 918 or McLaren P1 of course

 

Yeah public transportation is almost non-existent in my area. And everyone drives ridiculous 6L v8 trucks everywhere.

 

Public transportation is completely unfeasible in my area. There isn't the population density to support it. It would require a far larger tax burden on residents than what they pay in annual upkeep and fuel costs for their cars. Many of the municipalities in this area have already resorted to running their busses only during rush hours (~2-3 hours in the morning and ~2-3 hours in the late afternoon). And the major city in our area (population ~250k) operates their busses at a significant loss every year. A couple years back they cut down the number of routes (as well as hours of bus operation) that are serviced by the city busses, but even with that they still operate at a very large loss.

Many people here use appropriate V8 trucks. Hauling heavy loads requires a lot of torque and HP and the structural integrity to haul it without breaking down. We have a couple V8 trucks (one heavy duty and one light duty as well a couple V6 trucks) out at the family ranch. It comes in handy when you need to haul over 1 ton of cargo. Something a Tesla isn't going to be doing for the forseeable future.

The closest we'd be able to get to an electric vehicle would be a diesel electric, similar to the train, assuming that can be economically adapted to light and heavy duty trucks.

And during the winter when you have to drive on unplowed roads in 2-3 feet (sometimes more) of snow, that Tesla isn't going to be going anywhere except the driveway.

As well, our in state electricity prices have gone up substantially already with our state utility selling electricity to California. I can't even imagine the exorbitant increase in electricity rates if every single vehicle in the state was an electric vehicle. When less than 1% of vehicles on the road are electric plug-in vehicles, it's not much of an impact. But if all of them were? Yeah, no thank you.

Especially with the Democratic party obstructing Nuclear power plant construction whenever it comes up. But that's another rant for another day.

Regards,
SB

 

Yeah, there should be a thread about energy sources in this forum. I'm also pro-nuclear btw (and have my reservations about solar and wind).