Car Enthusiast Club [Now Motorcycle friendly!] - First thread to 150k! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[GlassBomb]

14 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

It should also be noted you cannot refuel an ICE car with solar panels, which is what I meant by "renewably."

That's one thing that I really like, and want myself.

 

I just want to be able to hook my car up in the evening when I get home, and have a good charge for the day after. Would be so nice to have a couple of solar panels on the roof, and a battery for the house to charge the car and power the house during peak demand to decease costs, etc.

 

For me - That would mean zero visits to charging stations for 99% of the trips that I do. I'm more than good enough with less than 150 km's of real world range.

[Fast_N_Curious]

28 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I think you're intentionally being daft if you don't think our lack of adoption is mostly fueled by the incredibly potent forces of fossil fuel industry lobbying. Electricity as a mainstay to the level we have it now is only a relatively recent phenomenon. If you think lithium mining is morally concerning then wait till ya hear about how many wars we've been in over fossil fuel and why we have such an expansive and expensive military in the states... Oh, need I remind you about fracking incidents like what happened with Deepwater Horizon in 2010 with BP. It should also be noted you cannot refuel an ICE car with solar panels, which is what I meant by "renewably."

Make no mistake lithium IS morally and environmentally concerning.

 

And if we are turning this into an equivalency argument, let's talk about religion and continue to ignore the detriment of electric vehicles... Oh wait, you are already trying to do that!. As for the large US miliary force, you are okay with slimming that down? Just FYI we were essentially fossil fuel independent when Trump was president. What has Biden done? In fact it seems like he and Obama might be an incredibility potent force against the use of fossil fuels? 

 

I stand by what I said as fact:

 

LITHIUM is NOT a renewable resource.

(also) OIL is NOT a renewable resource.

 

But there are vastly larger quantities of oil in the ground than lithium AND it is:

1)Less damaging to the environment

2)Does not use child labor.

3)Not toxic 

 

Please don't let the irony get lost on you. I thought EVs were environmentally friendly? we were basically 100% independent in terms of oil production here in the United States, what happened? Need I remind you again? Lithium, another crucial component of lithium-ion batteries can only be harvested from a couple 3rd world nations use child labor to do it. How is that moving towards energy independence? 

 

The irony is clearly lost on this guy:

 

How's that for energy independence? 

[STRMfrmXMN]

2 minutes ago, Fast_N_Curious said:

Make no mistake lithium IS morally and environmentally concerning.

 

And if we are turning this into an equivalency argument, let's talk about religion and continue to ignore the detriment of electric vehicles... Oh wait, you are already trying to do that!. As for the large US miliary force, you are okay with slimming that down? Just FYI we were essentially fossil fuel independent when Trump was president. What has Biden done? In fact it seems like he and Obama might be an incredibility potent force against the use of fossil fuels? 

 

I stand by what I said as fact:

 

LITHIUM is NOT a renewable resource.

(also) OIL is NOT a renewable resource.

 

But there are vastly larger quantities of oil in the ground than lithium AND it is:

1)Less damaging to the environment

2)Does not use child labor.

3)Not toxic 

 

Please don't let the irony get lost on you. I thought EVs were environmentally friendly? we were basically 100% independent in terms of oil production here in the United States, what happened? Need I remind you again? Lithium, another crucial component of lithium-ion batteries can only be harvested from a couple 3rd world nations use child labor to do it. How is that moving towards energy independence? 

 

The irony is clearly lost on this guy:

 

 

How's that for energy independence? 

I feel like you went down a weirdly political rant.... This has nothing to do with religion either. This is a car thread. Fossil fuel/energy independence is a tricky subject and has very little to do with who is president and largely due to global economic forces and the "trusty" hand of OPEC. The best thing to do to become less energy-dependent on other countries would be to become less dependent on almighty oil. Oil industry lobbying has been powerful no matter who the president is. Moving to EVs is a start, although moving to more widely-adopted public transit is a far more thorough one. This also gets us into the really tricky subject of globalization and how good or bad being dependent and having interconnected commerce between nations is or isn't. 

 

My point was the US military is as expansive worldwide as it is because of our dependence on fossil fuels from other countries. It doesn't matter how "energy independent" we are as we are wholly too dependent on a resource that we consume obscene amounts of. Moving to EVs is both a short- and long-term solution to removing ourselves from fossil fuel dependence. Like all new technologies it takes time to adopt. We may find more moral ways of extracting cobalt and lithium later on. We may find ways of engineering solar panels to charge cars reasonably quickly while they sit outside. We may find that solid state batteries become so potent that the current huge battery capacity of a Model S would be enough to power a dump truck for thousands of miles 10, 20, 30 years from now. Who knows - we might undo the massive lobbying effects of General Motors in the 1950s having created the level of car-dependence we know today and affix public transportation systems that would massively reduce all forms of emissions. Trains!

[STRMfrmXMN]

38 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Twas in for 'low oil pressure warning on dash once', I noted oil was super sooty black for 8800 miles left on a 10,000 mile OCI, checked oil pressure with mechanical gauge and found it kind of around the minimums but above them when hot tho not by much. Suggested switching up 5W-40 as we didn't know what had been used in it, and if the message came back to shop for another car. Well I had some surprise when I reset the oil miles counter and was greeted by 'next oil change in 18,700 miles' which means that the oil had about 10K on it which makes much more sense. Also ended up replacing a ripped PCV diaphragm which hopefully helps with the P0420 it's throwing sometimes despite a fresh (but aftermarket) cat converter on it.

I remember a friend of mine with an identical Legacy GT wagon to mine telling me "yeah the oil light doesn't come on on our cars until they're two quarts low on oil" and I was like "Yo that's the pressure light dude! Don't let it get that low!" It was a miracle that car survived his ownership before he sold it...

 

Also had a lady that came in with a bit over 12K on the oil in her Q5 a couple weeks ago. She hadn't done an oil change in over a year. She comes in saying her car is saying the oil is a quart low which can't be possible because she had it topped off last time she was in... in December the year prior. I tried to explain to her that oil does burn a little faster as it goes through more wear and tear and that she is a couple thousand miles over her oil change due date, so not only is it causing a lot of premature wear on her engine which will cause it to burn faster, but that oil is also not in great shape anymore and will burn a smidge faster. The light wouldn't be on if she would have done an oil change two thousand miles ago! She wouldn't have it and insisted something was wrong with her car... which I guess isn't wrong because I don't believe newer cars should burn oil ever, but I digress. 

 

I need the generally car-idiot populace to adopt EVs already. I can deal with the occasional TPMS light and stuck sunroof.

[GlassBomb]

5 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I feel like you went down a weirdly political rant.... This has nothing to do with religion either. This is a car thread. Fossil fuel/energy independence is a tricky subject and has very little to do with who is president and largely due to global economic forces and the "trusty" hand of OPEC. The best thing to do to become less energy-dependent on other countries would be to become less dependent on almighty oil. Oil industry lobbying has been powerful no matter who the president is. Moving to EVs is a start, although moving to more widely-adopted public transit is a far more thorough one. This also gets us into the really tricky subject of globalization and how good or bad being dependent and having interconnected commerce between nations is or isn't. 

 

My point was the US military is as expansive worldwide as it is because of our dependence on fossil fuels from other countries. It doesn't matter how "energy independent" we are as we are wholly too dependent on a resource that we consume obscene amounts of. Moving to EVs is both a short- and long-term solution to removing ourselves from fossil fuel dependence. Like all new technologies it takes time to adopt. We may find more moral ways of extracting cobalt and lithium later on. We may find ways of engineering solar panels to charge cars reasonably quickly while they sit outside. We may find that solid state batteries become so potent that the current huge battery capacity of a Model S would be enough to power a dump truck for thousands of miles 10, 20, 30 years from now. Who knows - we might undo the massive lobbying effects of General Motors in the 1950s having created the level of car-dependence we know today and affix public transportation systems that would massively reduce all forms of emissions. Trains!

I for one would love an EV truck for work. Give. Give. Give.

It would be excellent for inner city work with less noise, and where range becomes less of an issue.

 

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

If you were that strongly involved in the industry I think you'd understand that I'm referring to the MPG equivalent as kWh/100 km. Range is such a variable thing, hence we shouldn't be using it, hence I say that EVs are in their infancy - the public adoption of it is still extremely low and people can only think in range anxiety measures of EV efficiency even though longer range doesn't indicate more efficiency. Your example of range being an indicator of when the car is going to be "empty" is a perfect example, although despite the thousands of electric cars I've driven, I've never been stranded by one. The E-Tron we use as a shuttle still goes a bit after it hits "0 miles" as did all the Bolts at the Chevy dealer. My assumption is that you were working on vehicles that underwent far harsher conditions than cars typically do. I would probably agree that I'd rather have a crane with an ICE backup, for example.

Yes, I worked a a few places along the way, a Nissan and Clarklift dealership and after that I was an in-house maintenance mech/tech working on Crowns for awhile too in a DC.
 

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

 

I work for an Audi dealer and, although they don't break much (and don't worry, Audi still found a way to make electric cars break!) the only maintenance that they recommend are tire rotations every 10K miles and coolant changes every 100K or something along those lines. The Bolts I worked with at Chevy were every 140K for the cooling system. Obviously stuff like window regulators and door lock actuators can still break on these cars, but they don't have all the oily bits that break. ICE cars need transmission fluid changes, they need way, way more frequent coolant changes, differential fluid changes, new clutches, new air intake filters, new brake components far more often, etc. It's deliberately obtuse to say that they need just as much regular maintenance. They simply do not.

No, it's not an obtuse thing to say - I will admit I didn't properly describe my meaning of it (That's on me) but yes, they do require the same level of maintenance in terms of how often you do it and depending on it's actual use/useage enviroment, may require it even more than you'd think.

Once a month/200hrs of operation is the norm and that's what we went by but in some cases we'd do them every 100 hrs, depending on the lift type and other variables about it's use/enviroment as mentioned.
This was important since some places would run these things 24/7 all the time so it didn't take long to rack up some hrs on one and you had to be on top of it. Normally (Depending on where you live) a vehicle for driving gets about an hour or two per day on it on average. 
These were going all the time aside from battery changes, shift changes, breakdowns and such that would cause it to stop because that's how it is and you can imagine the amount of wear & tear these things accumilated and how quickly it did accumilate because of it.

The electronics themselves do hold up rather well, considering all the physical shock and banging they experience right along with the hrs put on them non-stop but when things go wrong, it can be a real pain to diagnose and fix correctly and that's when the experience on them pays off.
For example, with a Crown reach truck there are certain codes that will tend to pop up far more often than others, I know you know what I'm referring to and can tell after some time what it means because you've seen it so often - It just becomes routine.

As a particular example, in the case of a Crown like I was working on, code 331 always meant the traction motor encoder was bad.
You just grabbed another one, replaced it for the older one, cleared the code and you're done.

There were other things too like when one would get "Stuck in the rack" while stocking pallets up high.
It was almost always operator error and the lift would code out and shut down. Try to restart it, same thing would happen so it they coudn't get it clear of the rack to lower the mast and get going again.
I'd just go out to the lift and after accessing the service menu, clear the code so it would try to function and then after repeating these steps a few times (Would keep coding/shutting down out until I got the forks/carriage up) I got it out and the mast down.

 EV's, while different and their tech is well advanced in comparison, it's still the same basic thing because of it's nature - That being it's all based on electronics. It's the same concept as a PC you can build today vs one that was built 20 years ago - Even though a new one is more advanced and can do more, faster, all the basics of what it is still applies.
 

[AlwaysFSX]

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Atlantic blue pearl! This was taken through Lightroom which kinda dulls the color a lot. The color is a lot brighter in real life.

Ooooooooooooooooooooooh excellent

[iDeFecZx]

2 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I work for an Audi dealer and, although they don't break much (and don't worry, Audi still found a way to make electric cars break!) the only maintenance that they recommend are tire rotations every 10K miles and coolant changes every 100K or something along those lines

Used to work at a JLR dealer, the I-Paces are brakefluid and cabin filters every 20k/2y and thats it, believe coolant is every 100k/10 years

[STRMfrmXMN]

2 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Yes, I worked a a few places along the way, a Nissan and Clarklift dealership and after that I was an in-house maintenance mech/tech working on Crowns for awhile too in a DC.
 

No, it's not an obtuse thing to say - I will admit I didn't properly describe my meaning of it (That's on me) but yes, they do require the same level of maintenance in terms of how often you do it and depending on it's actual use/useage enviroment, may require it even more than you'd think.

Once a month/200hrs of operation is the norm and that's what we went by but in some cases we'd do them every 100 hrs, depending on the lift type and other variables about it's use/enviroment as mentioned.
This was important since some places would run these things 24/7 all the time so it didn't take long to rack up some hrs on one and you had to be on top of it. Normally (Depending on where you live) a vehicle for driving gets about an hour or two per day on it on average. 
These were going all the time aside from battery changes, shift changes, breakdowns and such that would cause it to stop because that's how it is and you can imagine the amount of wear & tear these things accumilated and how quickly it did accumilate because of it.

The electronics themselves do hold up rather well, considering all the physical shock and banging they experience right along with the hrs put on them non-stop but when things go wrong, it can be a real pain to diagnose and fix correctly and that's when the experience on them pays off.
For example, with a Crown reach truck there are certain codes that will tend to pop up far more often than others, I know you know what I'm referring to and can tell after some time what it means because you've seen it so often - It just becomes routine.

As a particular example, in the case of a Crown like I was working on, code 331 always meant the traction motor encoder was bad.
You just grabbed another one, replaced it for the older one, cleared the code and you're done.

There were other things too like when one would get "Stuck in the rack" while stocking pallets up high.
It was almost always operator error and the lift would code out and shut down. Try to restart it, same thing would happen so it they coudn't get it clear of the rack to lower the mast and get going again.
I'd just go out to the lift and after accessing the service menu, clear the code so it would try to function and then after repeating these steps a few times (Would keep coding/shutting down out until I got the forks/carriage up) I got it out and the mast down.

 EV's, while different and their tech is well advanced in comparison, it's still the same basic thing because of it's nature - That being it's all based on electronics. It's the same concept as a PC you can build today vs one that was built 20 years ago - Even though a new one is more advanced and can do more, faster, all the basics of what it is still applies.
 

The issues you describe, to me, sound like issues that any machine could have whether EV or not. Problems coming up so often that solving them becomes routine. How many EA888 water pumps have our techs done in a quarter of book time? 

 

Also, were these forklifts that were on the cheaper end (I don't know the market at all, sorry. I've heard of Hyster!) and thus particularly hard to keep running? I'm assuming the electric ones were more expensive. It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. Most EVs are more expensive than most other ICE cars because the technology is still expensive and will take awhile to become cheaper.

 

From what I can tell from every EV car I've had to help with or seen come in, they are much more reliable than competing ICE cars. Problems they encountered were due to poor engineering. The Bolt EV having battery fires comes to mind, a'la Ford Pinto. Our RS E-tron GTs have 6 or 7 ghost codes that we have to hide from the ECU when the cars come in because the fix is a software update that Audi says will be released next year. These things could still happen with ICE cars. On Audis, it sounds like the EVs are better interconnected to the ECUs in the car and thus give more prevalent data for diagnostics. Whereas an ICE car could have a P0420 for a vacuum leak, a bad catalytic converter, a bad O2 sensor, etc. Also, to be fair, most people with EVs do not drive them anywhere near as much as the average ICE car owner. 

 

Time will tell. I'm pretty ready for most cars to be electric. The power grid issues and technological hurdles are what's getting in my way

1 hour ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Ooooooooooooooooooooooh excellent

I got lots of pics, some not as up-to-date (none of these pics show the Mach V wing), but I got a few!

 

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

The issues you describe, to me, sound like issues that any machine could have whether EV or not. Problems coming up so often that solving them becomes routine. How many EA888 water pumps have our techs done in a quarter of book time? 

They would only be the same if they were all EV or ICE because EV's don't require a fuel pump for example. Some problems I ran into, that weren't related to the nature of the vehicle being electric or ICE were the same such as brakes or bad wheel bearings as examples of that.

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

 

Also, were these forklifts that were on the cheaper end (I don't know the market at all, sorry. I've heard of Hyster!) and thus particularly hard to keep running? I'm assuming the electric ones were more expensive. It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. Most EVs are more expensive than most other ICE cars because the technology is still expensive and will take awhile to become cheaper.

No - Usually more expensive or the same at the very least.
As long as you did the maintenance and they were treated right by the operator(s) you rarely had problems from them regardless if it was gas, diesel, LP or electric powered.
Some situations of course were worse than others.

 

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

From what I can tell from every EV car I've had to help with or seen come in, they are much more reliable than competing ICE cars. Problems they encountered were due to poor engineering. The Bolt EV having battery fires comes to mind, a'la Ford Pinto. Our RS E-tron GTs have 6 or 7 ghost codes that we have to hide from the ECU when the cars come in because the fix is a software update that Audi says will be released next year.

I can tell you about a ghost code - Code 19 on certain Nissan electric lifts of a given model. Indicates the battery electrolyte was low but there was never anything in the lift to read the battery's electrolyte level!

It was a feature that was planned but never implemented.
The authors/programmers of it's control module at the factory forgot to remove the code for it from the module's firmware so there it was. All it took to trigger it was a certain small 5A fuse to blow and it would code out and stop in it's tracks, would not do a thing while this code was popping up.
Replace the small 5A fuse, clear it out - Back in biz again.

 

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

These things could still happen with ICE cars. On Audis, it sounds like the EVs are better interconnected to the ECUs in the car and thus give more prevalent data for diagnostics. Whereas an ICE car could have a P0420 for a vacuum leak, a bad catalytic converter, a bad O2 sensor, etc. Also, to be fair, most people with EVs do not drive them anywhere near as much as the average ICE car owner. 

 

Time will tell. I'm pretty ready for most cars to be electric. The power grid issues and technological hurdles are what's getting in my way

I got lots of pics, some not as up-to-date (none of these pics show the Mach V wing), but I got a few!

 

 

I'm not ready at all and TBH this sudden rush to EV's will actually work against itself.
It needs to happen more slowly to give time for all the infrastructure to catch up and the tech to further mature so it's reliable, feasable to implement in terms of support AND for it to be economical too.
By the time all that comes to be I'll probrably be outta here anyway or at the very least, no longer driving.

[AlwaysFSX]

5 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I got lots of pics, some not as up-to-date (none of these pics show the Mach V wing), but I got a few!

Well these certainly brought me joy

[Bitter]

Tying it all together here, just used a PCI slot cover to fix a minor issue with my new-used Q45 throttle body. The throttle roller was catching in a spot, the metal it runs along had a hitch in it when it was stamped. Used the slot cover to remove the clip, remove the roller, then used it to hold some 600 grit sandpaper and smoothed it down then used it to reinstall the clip. Now it opens through the full sweep smoothly without any 'bumps' like it had before. I know I'd have felt that in the pedal and it would have annoyed me endlessly. I'm already going to be bothered by the slack in the throttle body from the opening mechanism but I think I can work around that by just holding it in slight tension to take up the play without opening the plate, I hope.

[DANK_AS_gay]

6 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Yeeaaaaaaaaaaah or that

MPKw, the leaps to be negative lmao

 

There is also MPGe, where a direct energy comparison is used. Electricity and gas both contain energy, and you can measure how much energy is used to move a car over a mile, and convert that to amount of gas or vice versa. That's what MPGe is.

 

6 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

So - How many inches to the electron do you get?
Can you even measure that?

Yes. The amount see above.

For a more detailed explanation, energy is measured in Joules. A joule is defined by "the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one meter in the direction of action of the force". Notice that time isn't a part of that unit. But Watts do have time, given that 1 watt = 1 joule/s. Why is this important? Because we can calculate the raw capability to do work of both gas and a battery using Joules, and then the actual work being done using Watts. Or the potential energy contained in chemical bonds. Gas has an energy density of 46 MJ/Kg, and Tesla's Model 3 battery (the 60 kWh version) has an energy density of .3 MJ/Kg. But electric cars have a much higher efficiency than gas cars, as the most efficient ICE engines in production are at roughly 30% thermal efficiency. Electric motors are at a much higher rating, which I do not care to research after doing the math for the MJ/Kg calculation.

[Commodus]

On 10/28/2022 at 6:02 PM, Fast_N_Curious said:

Make it Nürburgring and then see what happens with the GT3 

 

Also: this won't happen with ICE cars: 

 

jk - I admire the electric car for it's low end torque. And don't get me wrong, I am all in for the hybrid electric/ICE race cars as well. I just don't think its nearly as viable as fossil fuels are. 

 

 

Oh, I'll freely admit that EVs have a ways to go on overall track performance. There are some good performers (Porsche Taycan, most notably), but they won't yet make people ditch Ferraris and Lamborghinis for track days.

 

I just think it's important to realize that EV technology is far from static, and we shouldn't presume that ICE will always be better at some tasks. Remember, the stereotype of an EV used to be a small, putt-around-town egg of a vehicle like the Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi MiEV; it stands to reason that the EVs you see several years from now will be noticeably better than the ones of today.

[AlwaysFSX]

22 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

There is also MPGe, where a direct energy comparison is used. Electricity and gas both contain energy, and you can measure how much energy is used to move a car over a mile, and convert that to amount of gas or vice versa. That's what MPGe is.

MPGe is a stupid metric that tells you nothing productive while driving a vehicle.

[DANK_AS_gay]

6 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

MPGe is a stupid metric that tells you nothing productive while driving a vehicle.

It's not supposed to, it's supposed to help ICE owners understand how efficient an electric car is in comparison to their current car. It's a selling point, but obv. you wouldn't actually use it while actually driving.

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

There is also MPGe, where a direct energy comparison is used. Electricity and gas both contain energy, and you can measure how much energy is used to move a car over a mile, and convert that to amount of gas or vice versa. That's what MPGe is.

 

Yes. The amount see above.

For a more detailed explanation, energy is measured in Joules. A joule is defined by "the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one meter in the direction of action of the force". Notice that time isn't a part of that unit. But Watts do have time, given that 1 watt = 1 joule/s. Why is this important? Because we can calculate the raw capability to do work of both gas and a battery using Joules, and then the actual work being done using Watts. Or the potential energy contained in chemical bonds. Gas has an energy density of 46 MJ/Kg, and Tesla's Model 3 battery (the 60 kWh version) has an energy density of .3 MJ/Kg. But electric cars have a much higher efficiency than gas cars, as the most efficient ICE engines in production are at roughly 30% thermal efficiency. Electric motors are at a much higher rating, which I do not care to research after doing the math for the MJ/Kg calculation.

All these formulas being thrown around cannot totally predict the amount of energy an EV over a given distance will consume because of all the variables involved with variances in load electric motors are subject to as they operate - That in turn changes the power draw from source which in the case of an EV is the battery.
Even batteries that are capable of sustaining voltage for most of it's charge will eventually start dropping voltage output as it gets near full discharge, a term for it is about the battery going "Flat".
How quickly it reaches that point (Flat) is yet another variable.

In the case of an ICE vehicle you won't run into a gradual decrease in available energy output from it's fuel load diminishing as you would with an EV based on it's available charge left.

Pertaining to an ICE vehicle, what you've got is consistent in what you get from it from full tank (100% fuel load) until the fuel is all gone (0% fuel load) but an EV cannot sustain the same power output from full charge (100%) to full discharge (0%) of the battery.

In general:
As a battery discharges it's voltage potential goes down and as voltage falls, amp draw goes up which will start making things get hot and as anyone that knows about electronics can tell you, heat is the bane of all electronics and electrical devices.
That's because of the simple fact you cannot destroy energy - Once it's in play it has to go somewhere to dissapate... And it will, either as work done or heat radiated.
If the energy, once induced into the system cannot dissapate itself as work done it turns into heat and will start making the components using it start getting warmer and it's an accumilate effect you cannot negate, leading to premature failures of it's components which spells nothing but trouble.

I've also noted many of these formulas tend to not take into account battery condition/age as a variable which will affect things too - It's almost always assumed by these formulas you'll have "X" amount of power and "X" amount of voltage/battery capacity (Full to empty) - That can be done as we all know but it's not being said/expressed in that way here.

I can say the battery in an EV, which is really nothing more than a tank for electrons to be stored in is the same as a gas tank in an ICE vehicle except you don't have to worry about replacing your tank in an ICE vehicle every few years under most conditions but you will with an EV regardless of how you treat it or conditions of where it's operated - Said cost of battery replacement being beyond ridiculous.

I can tell you are for EV's and that's fine - Personally I'll never have one except for maybe an E-Z Go..... Which I'd be OK with. 
I've been around this stuff long enough to know even though the tech is more advanced, at the same time it's still the same once you get back to the basics of "It".

[Bitter]

I'm fairly certain they don't just have the traction motors hooked right to the batteries with a big on/off switch. I suspect most are running through a controller of some kind that is able to take battery in and provide regulated power to them so they're fed with a consistent power. I'm sure there's some cars with power modes that let you go whole ham in some way with lower restrictions to allowed motor power.

[Beerzerker]

40 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I'm fairly certain they don't just have the traction motors hooked right to the batteries with a big on/off switch. I suspect most are running through a controller of some kind that is able to take battery in and provide regulated power to them so they're fed with a consistent power. I'm sure there's some cars with power modes that let you go whole ham in some way with lower restrictions to allowed motor power.

You are correct - They have a controller that varys the voltage/power the traction motors get to accurately control motor speed.
I forgot to mention EV's should be AC instead of DC but the batteries themselves are DC regardless. Power goes through an converter to transform it to AC power which is fine, it even allows it to run strong for most of the battery charge but the problem with AC on a battery is once the battery reaches a certain point of discharge, alot of the time it suddenly goes flat as in it quits.

Usually when they quit, it's just that instead of the gradual decline in power you'd notice from a DC powered motor/vehicle.

I still have a controller here from one (Lift/cart) that's useable from 12 to 72V's of power but it's a DC type controller.

[Bitter]

38 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

You are correct - They have a controller that varys the voltage/power the traction motors get to accurately control motor speed.
I forgot to mention EV's should be AC instead of DC but the batteries themselves are DC regardless. Power goes through an converter to transform it to AC power which is fine, it even allows it to run strong for most of the battery charge but the problem with AC on a battery is once the battery reaches a certain point of discharge, alot of the time it suddenly goes flat as in it quits.

Usually when they quit, it's just that instead of the gradual decline in power you'd notice from a DC powered motor/vehicle.

I still have a controller here from one (Lift/cart) that's useable from 12 to 72V's of power but it's a DC type controller.

Usually there's a reserve programmed into those controllers on EV's so they don't just up and die but I'm sure any idiot can run one flat the same as any idiot can run their car out of gas... despite I'm sure ample warnings about the impending doom.

 

I guess the one upshot is if you're somewhere sunny and have even a modest array of panels you can trickle in some charge to run some basic HVAC even if you can't drive anywhere. As solar cells become cheaper and more efficient and cars become more efficient, I think solar charging will become more viable. You can't drill an oil well and refine some gasoline. 

[DANK_AS_gay]

1 hour ago, Beerzerker said:

snip

AcTuAlLy, MPGe uses the same/similar "course" that the EPA uses for MPG on ICE cars, which tests higher/lower loads, although I am unsure if it tests the cars at high/low battery capacity. Also, @Bitter Tesla reserves 10 or so kWh as "unusable" in order to extend the life of the battery, by making it impossible to fully deplete the battery through software trickery. Because fully depleting it would damage it. (if you didn't know that already)

I personally would say electric cars are unviable in the US until we can get a similar energy density to gas. Maybe in the UK, where things are closer together, or other places in europe. Right now, it takes 11 years for the pollution caused by making an electric car to be offset by the "lack" of pollution produced by driving electric cars. At that point you need a new battery that costs as much as the car is worth, in which case, you get a new electric car. Meaning in the end, THEY MAKE THE SAME POLLUTION. Electric cars don't solve pollution, they just move it where we don't have to see it.

1 hour ago, Beerzerker said:

but you will with an EV regardless of how you treat it or conditions of where it's operated - Said cost of battery replacement being beyond ridiculous.

And the battery is part of the chassis/body in an effort to reduce weight, which is part of why it's so expensive. They also replace the entire battery, instead of the portion that needs to be replaced. Rich Rebuilds fixed Hoovie's Tesla for $5k, as opposed to the $22k Tesla quoted, which was how much Hoovie paid for the car itself.

1 hour ago, Beerzerker said:

I can tell you are for EV's and that's fine - Personally I'll never have one except for maybe an E-Z Go..... Which I'd be OK with. 
I've been around this stuff long enough to know even though the tech is more advanced, at the same time it's still the same once you get back to the basics of "It".

Oh no, I am definitely not. When I did that math I was talking about the actual energy density of a battery vs gas, gas having (46/.3) times more energy per kg than a battery. There are so, so many reasons to not be for electric cars, and billions of dollars from multiple companies doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. It's a money pit.

[Bitter]

Thing is, as technology marches forward batteries will get cleaner. Gasoline probably will not. Hydrogen is cool but....we have batteries. Why waste energy concentrating and compressing then burning hydrogen when you can just electric to battery to motor? Maybe for conversion of diesel engines it makes sense but not so much personal cars. 

[Beerzerker]

2 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

AcTuAlLy, MPGe uses the same/similar "course" that the EPA uses for MPG on ICE cars, which tests higher/lower loads, although I am unsure if it tests the cars at high/low battery capacity. Also, @Bitter Tesla reserves 10 or so kWh as "unusable" in order to extend the life of the battery, by making it impossible to fully deplete the battery through software trickery. Because fully depleting it would damage it. (if you didn't know that already)

What you are referring to is called "Deep Discharge" and yes, it can mess a battery up. Used to see it all the time and folks at the places I was doing work on their equipment were wondering why a battery that was supposed to be good for 5-7 years only lasted for about 2-3 years instead, costing thousands of dollars each.
It's called Proper care and use of", which the workers would not do - Mostly because either they personally didn't care to (The majority of it) or the employer woudn't give them time to do it, instead pressuring them to get going for the sake of production.
In cases when the operators didn't have to deal with the battery themselves, the company was too cheap to spend the $$ for keeping them in good shape, only spending it to repair/patch them and would run them to the point of no repair/non-fuctionality.

I've seen all that many times over.

2 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

I personally would say electric cars are unviable in the US until we can get a similar energy density to gas. Maybe in the UK, where things are closer together, or other places in europe. Right now, it takes 11 years for the pollution caused by making an electric car to be offset by the "lack" of pollution produced by driving electric cars. At that point you need a new battery that costs as much as the car is worth, in which case, you get a new electric car. Meaning in the end, THEY MAKE THE SAME POLLUTION. Electric cars don't solve pollution, they just move it where we don't have to see it.

And from a standpoint of pollution, doesn't matter if you can see it or not - It's still pollution and it's still harmful.

I agree - It's stupid to get something and have to pay alot for it, the equipment to use it, the setup at home to use the equipment to use it, the higher utility bill to keep it going and in just a few short years you have to get rid of it because a given part of it is so expensive the rest of it isn't worth the cost and THEN you'd buy another.
When you think about it, that's just a mobius loop of expensive failure.

2 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

And the battery is part of the chassis/body in an effort to reduce weight, which is part of why it's so expensive. They also replace the entire battery, instead of the portion that needs to be replaced. Rich Rebuilds fixed Hoovie's Tesla for $5k, as opposed to the $22k Tesla quoted, which was how much Hoovie paid for the car itself.

Oh no, I am definitely not. When I did that math I was talking about the actual energy density of a battery vs gas, gas having (46/.3) times more energy per kg than a battery. There are so, so many reasons to not be for electric cars, and billions of dollars from multiple companies doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. It's a money pit.

Well then - I'm glad you can see all that, I certainly do.
 

57 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Thing is, as technology marches forward batteries will get cleaner. Gasoline probably will not. Hydrogen is cool but....we have batteries. Why waste energy concentrating and compressing then burning hydrogen when you can just electric to battery to motor? Maybe for conversion of diesel engines it makes sense but not so much personal cars. 

The problem with Hydrogen is how dangerous it is in the first place.
If the Hindenburg wasn't a clue why, then I don't know what would be.

[Bitter]

Didn't help they painted the skin of it in essentially rocket fuel, thankfully we don't do that with cars.

[DANK_AS_gay]

17 hours ago, Bitter said:

Didn't help they painted the skin of it in essentially rocket fuel, thankfully we don't do that with cars.

Kerosene is rocket fuel too...