Success is built on selling people what they want.
You can fill up on gas at any street corner in minutes
In ~100k miles of US cross country traveling over the last five years, the only place I could not charge fast was middle of nowhere southeast Missouri, and there is a Supercharger there now. My gym has a free destination charger, as does my local brewery and airport parking. I no longer carry a 100ft 120V extension cord in my frunk, which I had to do in 2018.
Yes, we still have much to do to expand EV charging infra, but it’s not an unknown, it’s just more work. Street parking? Street charging. Renters? Mandated EV charging spot quotas with funding for the infra.
https://www.statista.com/topics/5144/single-family-homes-in-...
https://electrek.co/2019/11/13/la-adds-hundreds-of-ev-charge...
Let's find that driveway in apartment blocks then
For example, the management company that manages the apartment building where I rent my apartment has sent out a newsletter that they will convert 2000 parking places in their properties by 2025 with the following caveats:
- except where infrastructure doesn't support it
- except where there's not enough power to draw from the building
- except where it's prohibitively expensive to build the infrastructure
They manage 395 buildings with a total of 20 000 apartments.
Funny how "it's easy and convenient" is actually never easy or convenient.
Until then, they can pull their ideoligical MAGA hats deeper over their foreheads. It won't change reality.
A large battery EV can be charged once or twice a week in many cases and cover the commuting needs of someone who lives in a place without home charging.
The general idea is, suppose you want a vehicle with a 400 mile range. Once you have that 75 miles of range (battery pack of around 10-20 kWh), is it then better to add on another 40-100 kWh of battery as a "range extender", or to add a combustion engine and fuel tank as the "range extender" to get you to the 400 mile range?
In other words we've completely made transportation green, and without ever having to use humongous batteries. This an obvious conclusion that anyone can make, but unfortunately too many people have been caught up in the "mission" to not realize the existence of intelligent compromises.
- Corolla Regular LE: 316 g-CO2/mi (35 MPG) - Corolla Hybrid LE: 210 g-CO2/mi (50 MPG) - Tesla Model 3 RWD: 110 g-CO2/mi (134 MPGe w/ avg. US electrical mix)
So as I see it: - First 1.3 kWh: 33% reduction - Next 58.7 kWh: 32% additional (total 65% reduction from original 316 g-CO2/mi)
So why haven't we made every vehicle a hybrid first before pushing full EVs? Why aren't there incentives for regular hybrid vehicles. Seems like a terrible waste of resources when everything is so supply constrained.
Plus that CO2 generation with an EV happens at a power plant and can be contained much easier (or sidelined when enough wind/solar replaces it). Hybrids also still emit other toxic things like NO2, and require maintenance.
Finally, an EV is simply a better product than any ICE (hybrids included). They are faster, quieter, less stinky and require no trips to the gas station or mechanic. I simply can't go back.
My friends bought exactly that - an old leaf with an aging battery that would get max 100km to a charge (60mi). That was more than enough for their daily commute, trips to the local ski resort, kids to school etc. They drove it for 5 years, it's range is now about 50km to a charge, and they just sold it to his sister who drives it to work everyday in Vancouver.
They said it was easily the best car they've ever owned, and they have a Model 3 now, Rivian on order.
They must be fast charging it or taking it on highways for the range estimate to decay like that. My 2012 leaf still gives me 115km range.
And likewise, I strangely still prefer to drive it for in-town trips over my 2021 model Y. Not worrying about accidents or vandals probably a big part of it, but also it's just chill to drive.
Could an alternative of making reliable nuclear power sources (either fission or fusion) work better? Or maybe focus on making AGI/ASI work and jump to some next levels of technology?
Storage of 4-8 hours of generating capacity is found to lower the ratios so that nuclear is only -8x more expensive to install and remains -9x more to maintain.
As in, Solar may be 12x cheaper per kW but requires 20x more spaces so the argument isn't quite so easy to make? I had always heard that the problem with Electricity in general is shipping it from empty spaces where you could build vast solar arrays to populated regions, but I'm not sure if that's just a lie OPEC sold me.
When I am road tripping I usually try to charge such that I make it to the next charger at 3-5%. It ends up being a faster overall trip because you get faster charging speeds.
It's not like a gas tank where unexpected traffic can run you to zero. Bad traffic improves your range. If you bite off more than you intended, just drop 10kph and let the estimate adjust.
The "lack of high speed charging" makes me think the incident you describe was not one of the "usually Tesla" trips.. and I agree the EA/CP/etc. charging network never gives you a reliable picture of where you can charge, which chargers are broken or blocked, and how fast and leaves you to do your own homework.
And like I said, the "almost ran out of battery" events are the ideal, not a problem. It is in your mind that these were bad times.
In any case, dismissing this as a pathology when anyone brings it up, even when they want the same electrification that you do, doesn’t help anyone! Longer range batteries are what the market wants. Tesla isn’t crazy here, that’s why they are building their plans around it.
Also the problem with extend range hybrids is that people often just don't plug them in. This has been shown in many usage studies in Europe. And then these are just inefficient gas cars.
In practice, what seems to happen is that surprisingly few people in hybrid cars bother charging the battery. This has been studied since buying hybrid can be a tax evasion scheme in some European countries. And when people actually do have a choice between hybrid and BEV, they don't want the hybrid because driving around with explosion-based engines is simply worse. So while hybrids had some time in the spot light, it looks like maturing markets go to full BEVs.
You could argue that still in the ideal world we should do X. But in the real world, developments take decades to play out. You can't expect everything to be perfect in the mean time. In the future, batteries will be much lighter and cheaper, and mining and manufacturing will be done with fossil-free energy.
That's just because of incentives. Once gasoline is 5x as expensive per mile than electric, people will charge every night. For the twice-a-year long trip, that extra gasolinr cost won't matter much, and give them the freedom they want. Without driving an extra half a ton of battery around the rest of the year.
For your other points, I used to be on the capex team at Tesla, so maybe I can shed some light.
> We probably could instead use 25Kwh batteries while still massively reducing carbon emissions.
Margins are everything in the automotive industry. Tesla has the highest margins in the industry by a considerable margin. If they release a car now with a 25Kwh hour battery, they will cannibalize their sales. Tesla knows that they can consistently beat the other players at cost, so they can transition easily once the other players catch up... which I'm not sure it's entirely possible at this point.
Secondly, the Capital expenditure costs drive, although amortized, much of the cost per car. The battery pack is only a small portion of the entire cost of the line and other material inputs, so dropping the kwH from 150 to 25 doesn't help the price of the vehicle from Tesla's side, but the end user will expect to pay a lot less.
Tesla worked directly with Idra to create one of the biggest presses in the world. The dies underwent hundreds of revisions, with a die CNC onsite. Those presses will revolutionize the way cars are made, and Tesla has Idra occupied for years with multiple press orders.
>Tesla chronically understates the carbon intensiveness of building lithium-ion batteries.
Tesla has been working on brine mining for years. They recently purchased some land in Nevada and have started working on the project. They have a pretty exciting plan of directing an array of mirrors at brine lakes, and using a series of pumps, filters, and an array of solar panels can get it pretty close to net zero.
I'm not actually arguing for or against the plan detailed here. I'm interested in any further reading materials to help my understanding of the choice between plug-in hybrids and full electrics and why the current (largely political) choices have been made.