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.
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.
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.
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.
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4209/is-it-neces...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
If you need more range, there's a pricier BMW that get's almost twice as far on a charge.
You can buy a used beater petrol car (but still working) for under $1,000.
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.
Come on.
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".
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.
http://www.torquenews.com/2250/how-long-will-electric-vehicl...
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.
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.)
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.
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.
"""The Leaf should have gone 84 x 1000 = 84K miles before hitting that."""
40K miles to 22% loss is about 50% faster than it should die.
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.
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.
http://www.torquenews.com/2250/how-long-will-electric-vehicl...
Real world wear is pretty bad, especially in places with hot summers, which is most of the US.
Swedish humor is no laughing matter.
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.
A brand new Tesla is about half the price of a similar (>400hp) car I guess.
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).
I would say you'd be correct if the benefits applied solely to Tesla vehicles, but not in this case.
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.
[1] In the U.S. the link is explicit: almost the entirety of the fuel tax is earmarked for highway construction and maintenance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund
"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)."
http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf
http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776...
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 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.