What's the problem with electric cars?

[DaveNP]

Originally Posted by Fika

That doesn't look like a typical line, I wonder if there is some additional context to this thing...

Skimming the comments on that video (so may or may not be true) it's a video from several years ago and the network of charging stations has grown since then, it was after Thanksgiving weekend in US when many people would have been away from home for the weekend, it was at a charging station with 40 charge points capable of doing a top up charge in 30 mins (and several of those points are vacant as the camera passes the site), doing the maths 1/2 mile queue would be about 160 cars so about two hours for everyone. Also odd that if you're waiting in a queue that long to add electricity to your car that you'd be sitting there with all of your lights on and a large number using the footbrake rather than the handbrake.

[Thekilt]

Originally Posted by Forg

I don't drive an EV, but two of the sets of chargers are near where I park at the local shopping centre. I've seen the set-of-three full, but the bank of what I think is about 10-12 hasn't ever been full that I've seen - and I usually get around to shopping at around 10am-11am on a Saturday or Sunday.

My wife's going through a desire to see movies on half-price Tuesday in the day-beds, every week, and one strange thing I HAVE noticed recently is Teslas arriving to charge at times between 9pm & 11pm. I dunno if they're parking there all night & live in one of the nearby unit blocks, or if they're doing their groceries late at night so nobody else will be around ... one fair hypothesis is also that the chargers DO get full at times when I've not been there.

Superchargers alter pricing depending in the time of day, cheaper overnight and more expensive during rush hour. If that supercharger is close to a city, it’s most likely people taking advantage of cheap charging compared to inner city chargers, or if they don’t have the capacity to charge at home. On the app you can see how many chargers are free and the cost. We did a trip up to London, left fully charged and before we left charged at Westfield for 30 mins to ensure we hand plenty of charge left when we got home as I’m still running off the 3 pin plug. This was a Thursday and there were plenty of chargers. You get an hour free parking too when you check in at the Tesla shop. I would of expected that to be rammed but it wasn’t.

[Ulrikas PA]

Originally Posted by Cull06

It’s a shame diesel became a dirty word - especially since Euro VI came along.
Look at the BMW 3 litre twin turbo. A masterpiece of a powerplant. (Issues traffic police had with it in single turbo aside)

I still quite fancy the Audi S4 TDi Avant quattro. 350 ish bhp, instant torque, effortless.

[sixaparrat]

Originally Posted by Thekilt

Everyone moving to SUVs already had that extra weight. A standard electric car (hatch, saloon etc) weighs about the same as a Large ICE SUV, but no one cared about the weight issue there…. Yes large electric SUVs weigh a lot but that’s where the issue is, everyone wanting larger cars. You can’t have a large lightweight car.

Not everyone is moving to SUVs but everyone is expected to move to BEV, which means that the current weight of an SUV which is at the high end of the personal transport weight range, will be the lowest weight for a BEV.
Therefore the average vehicle weight will be much increased.

[Forg]

Originally Posted by sixaparrat

Not everyone is moving to SUVs but everyone is expected to move to BEV, which means that the current weight of an SUV which is at the high end of the personal transport weight range, will be the lowest weight for a BEV.
Therefore the average vehicle weight will be much increased.

"Slightly" rather than "much".
It's a non-issue being talked-about by people looking for a reason to complain. There are real problems with EV's, this would be item number 432 on a prioritised list ...

I was talking to a workmate with a BYD, she & her family are living in a unit while they have a major renovation on their house (that'll include a solar+battery system). They can get a charge relatively easily BUT if they want to use a Tesla charger they pay something like double the rate; they're finding it painful as a result, the best approach they've found thus-far is to either pay the extra money for the Tesla chargers or to "go shopping" at a not-too-far-away shopping centre on the weekend for an extra hour while getting a top-up there.

Which underlines how it may be perfect for some people (eg. the other 3 workmates who've bought one recently & who are very happy as they have chargers installed at home), but others certainly need to look into their options before taking the leap. But then, no Widget suits everyone ...

[Moose Test]

Originally Posted by Forg

There are real problems with EV's, this [weight] would be item number 432 on a prioritised list ...

Hear, Hear. Weight and shape pale into insignificance as compared to to the real issues. To return to the OP's titular question, "What is wrong with electric cars?":

Nothing, inherently. Faster, cleaner (in that they don't directly emit air pollution via combustion), fewer moving parts and less servicing. Potentially more reliable. For some use cases they have the potential to be a good fit.

Elephant 1: The proposed rate of roll out and current adoption levels greatly exceed planning for, and the implementation of, the supporting infrastructure - charging provision, electricity generating and distribution capacity. Manufacturers of electric vehicles have no responsibility or accountability for such provisions.

Elephant 2: The huge and growing demand for battery production globally must be satisfied in a sustainable way, and not lead to as great or greater negative impact on the environment as the continued use of fossil fuels. How or if this can be achieved is far from clear at this time.

Baby Elephant 1: Affordability. The proposed timescales for phasing out fossil fuel sales in the UK makes no account for the historic dependence of a large proportion of the population on an affordable second hand market. With manufacturers like Volvo moving to "subscription" models for new EVs, with no possibility to own, the future of used sales seems unclear at least in the context of the traditional "affordable" motor trader.

Everything else is of supreme irrelevance until these problems can be addressed.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by sixaparrat

One problem, that's overlooked by most, is the weight of a BEV.
A Telsa Model 3 performance is 1850 kg or so, it's ICE equivalent, say BMW 3 series is 1500 kg or so, an increase of 340 kg. Across the board this will result in much increased damage to the sub-formation and substrates of roads, resulting in more roadworks, and more expensive (and more environmentally damaged future roads, because the damage caused is exponential to the increased weight.
I. e. In the dim distant past when I studied highway Engineering, lifetime of roads was designed for 25 years based upon the damage caused by Passenger Car Units (PCU).
Generally 100,000 PCU per day would wear out a road in 25 years.
However a 15 tonne lorry (the largest generally on the road at that time) caused the same damage as 300 PCU, nowadays a 38 tonner is worth 33,000 PCU.!

you will find these days as cars get heavier the tyres also get wider, so the pressure on the road is likely to be less or the same as previous cars, and trucks have even wider tyres .

[Pidgeonpost]

We have a friend, single lady in her 60's, who has one of the small BMW electric jobs. She told us of a trip she made from Gloucestershire to somewhere around Stoke. Late afternoon she stopped to do a bit of shopping while she recharged the beast. She then discovered that there was some incompatibility between her car and the charging point. I don't know the nature of the incompatibility, but she admitted defeat, spoke to someone working there who directed her to another location where she would find a matching charging point. Off she went, all the time watching her battery level dropping and it beginning to get dark. She arrived but then found she had no mobile signal for whatever app she needed. She did get there eventually, but was pretty wound up by the experience.
I'm sure that things are better now, and will continue to improve as people migrate whether voluntarily or not.

[Tannaton]

Cars have been getting heavier, much heavier, for the past 50 years. The extra weight of BEV's is just the next roll of the dice on that. Have a google as to the weight of say a 1977 Golf, Fiesta, Escort etc. compared to the Golf, Fiesta or Focus of today, the increase is broadly +80% for a like for like petrol version.

[Frank Bullitt]

Originally Posted by sixaparrat

Not everyone is moving to SUVs but everyone is expected to move to BEV, which means that the current weight of an SUV which is at the high end of the personal transport weight range, will be the lowest weight for a BEV.
Therefore the average vehicle weight will be much increased.

My V60 weighs 1800kg (on the nose), my Polestar 2 weighs 1832kg.

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