Tesla has now produced 1 million Electric cars in total.

[suicidalfranco]

12 minutes ago, Mihle said:

Hydrogen cars won't become a reality. Stuff that just can't run on batteries like planes might tho.

welp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

guess i'll stick to the petrol-lpg combo for as long as they exist then

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, zheega said:

Public transit existed way before electric cars did. Also, subsidies for electric cars are taking away funds from public transport.

not everyone can use public transport.  I use it as often as I can, but the reality is it's a long way from reasonable for a lot of people.

 

 

Also to the thread,  why are all the negative comments about electric cars always based on the 1% arguments?  

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Mihle said:

Hydrogen cars won't become a reality. Stuff that just can't run on batteries like planes might tho.

It is a reality in Japan.  The choices are hydrogen or electric.  Hydrogen is only a very marginal improvement on electric and isn’t sustainable either.  It makes sense in some countries as japan that have a very high population density and low land area where it is already being rolled out.   The Achilles heel of hydrogen is distribution.   It makes more sense in the EU than it does in the US or Canada, but the EU also has better electric distribution than the US so electric still wins in the EU.  Marginally, but it does it.  The Neither North America or the EU will ever see hydrogen cars. In the EU and North America it will go electro-> public transit.  In Japan it will go hydrogen-> public transit

[Guest willies leg]

6 hours ago, NeuesTestament said:

With current battery technology they will never really be competitive to normal cars.

 

Oh, they're way better than "normal" (assuming you mean ICE) cars.

An ICE car is a gasoline engine with a lot of mechanical parts, fluids, sensors, hoses, clamps, etc. etc. that happen to have some electronics they refer to as a "computer."

A Tesla is a computer first and foremost, fully networked over LTE. It just happens to have wheels.

 

I've had mine (Model 3 LR/RWD) for almost a year and have noticed quite a few things:

- Electric bill is about 1/3 what I paid for gasoline for the same amount of miles

- No maintenance. 30k miles, rotated the tires twice. That's it. I guess after a year or two I get to have the brake fluid flushed or the coolant changed. Probably the cabin filter too. But that's all.

- AMAZING software upgrades! When I got it, cruise control wasn't available (I was an early HW3 model). After a bunch of software updates I've got my autopilot (which I use every day), netflix/youtube/hulu/caraoke on the big screen - btw the sound system is INCREDIBLE when you watch video, even over LTE.....also got built in dashcam (4 cameras record), "sentry" mode, "dog" mode, lots of easter eggs...and games, oh the games!

- Charging is effortless. Just plug it in when I get home and it's all set to go when I get up. Don't have to open the garage door when it's warming up, no fumes. Supercharging is effortless and quick when I'm on super long trips. I figure I save about 1/2 hour a week by not going to the gas station.

- Interestingly, I find I have "range anxiety" when I use an ICE car. When I get to 1/8 or so on gas, I have to go hunting for a gas station. And I only really use ICE when I'm on vacation, so it's just a bunch of added stress.

- Math works out. If you're over around 50 miles round trip commute it'll pay for itself quickly because of no maintenance and low electricity costs.

 

I'm sure haters are gonna hate, but I'll tell you what, everyone I've talked to about theirs (mostly strangers at the superchargers) love their Teslas. I'd never go back to ICE.

[Engineer.AI]

14 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I think electric cars are a required stepping stone to public transit and they will buy buy badly needed time.  In the end suburbs are going to have to drastically change the way they work.  Electric cars are less unsustainable than petrol cars and they get the West in general out from under the heel of the oil producing countries, but they’re not without long term problems.

This is the need of the hour right now. Tesla might only be the stepping stone in this regard - there might spring up further companies, which offer more affordable EC's in the future - some, might even offer self-driving capabilities. I agree that we havent been able to engineer AI to be that efficient, but really - think of the possibilities!

~Engineer.AI

[jagdtigger]

22 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

you can just plug your Tesla in at night

Assuming you have a garage or place inside your plot for your car to avoid legal troubles, enough reserve in the electrical wiring in the house, big enough supply from the power company(i know many places where the main breaker is 15 A or less). Thats a lot of assumption to make.

 

22 hours ago, Commodus said:

I really don't think maintenance will be negated by the price when you're also paying for lower energy costs. 

So you think the government will grin and bear the loss of one of their biggest income?   (fuel tax, dont kid yourself that they wont be able to do it) To top it off as demand rises power companies will start to entertain the idea of asking more for electricity used for EV's............

 

22 hours ago, Commodus said:

why is it that EV resisters always act as if the technology has peaked

Im not saying it peaked but i do recognize a dead end when i see it. Its just not feasible to make that many batteries. Latest example how the production of e-tron stopped because battery shortages.

[thechinchinsong]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Assuming you have a garage or place inside your plot for your car to avoid legal troubles, enough reserve in the electrical wiring in the house, big enough supply from the power company(i know many places where the main breaker is 15 A or less). Thats a lot of assumption to make.

 

So you think the government will grin and bear the loss of one of their biggest income?   (fuel tax, dont kid yourself that they wont be able to do it) To top it off as demand rises power companies will start to entertain the idea of asking more for electricity used for EV's............

 

Im not saying it peaked but i do recognize a dead end when i see it. Its just not feasible to make that many batteries. Latest example how the production of e-tron stopped because battery shortages.

While I agree with your first two points, I have to disagree with your last. Just a recent example of battery innovation has been progress in the introduction of graphene on a larger commercial scale (RC hobbyists have been actually using graphene batteries for years). From what I can see, Tesla doesn't seem to be ramping down battery production for their vehicles, nor for their various solar/battery products. In fact, the trend has been to increase said production due to demand. 

 

Similar tale can be told for hydraulically fracking oil/gas wells in the 80s. It was a rarity before then and was considered not as economically feasible as finding more accessible oil/gas. However, due to demand (a combination of economic of political pressures), the technology eventually matured to where there is massive fracking in the US and Canada, producing quite a substantial amount. The same goes for batteries. If there is enough demand, then companies and innovators WILL supply, whether that be creating new technology, increasing production, or developing alternatives.

[Monkey Dust]

22 hours ago, Mihle said:

Hydrogen cars won't become a reality. Stuff that just can't run on batteries like planes might tho.

Hydrogen may well make more sense for trucks & buses, especially since range is more of a concern, and if the hydrogen infrastructure is built for those vehicles it opens up the market for hydrogen cars. We'll need more zero carbon hydrogen though.

 

BEVs big problem is the number of houses & apartments around the world that don't have off-street parking, making home charging difficult to impossible. There is a huge gap in the market hydrogen cars could get into if there is the hydrogen infrastructure to fuel them.

[Bombastinator]

21 minutes ago, Monkey Dust said:

Hydrogen may well make more sense for trucks & buses, especially since range is more of a concern, and if the hydrogen infrastructure is built for those vehicles it opens up the market for hydrogen cars. We'll need more zero carbon hydrogen though.

 

BEVs big problem is the number of houses & apartments around the world that don't have off-street parking, making home charging difficult to impossible. There is a huge gap in the market hydrogen cars could get into if there is the hydrogen infrastructure to fuel them.

I can confirm this as a landlord.  I’ve actually got off street parking and setting up charging for one vehicle (just mine) cost $10,000, and isn’t even really complete yet.  I’ve got pipe to run cable for tenant cars but only because I was thinking about this 10 years ago and planned for it.  I still ran into a blockage though because the apartment power setup still isn’t strong enough to even take electric vehicle charging.  I would have to run entire new mains services and I can’t because the power company doesn’t run lines big enough in my area.

 

Its a problem that will soon becomes a big problem.

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, Monkey Dust said:

Hydrogen may well make more sense for trucks & buses, especially since range is more of a concern, and if the hydrogen infrastructure is built for those vehicles it opens up the market for hydrogen cars. We'll need more zero carbon hydrogen though.

 

BEVs big problem is the number of houses & apartments around the world that don't have off-street parking, making home charging difficult to impossible. There is a huge gap in the market hydrogen cars could get into if there is the hydrogen infrastructure to fuel them.

Long range ones, possibly, shorter rang ones nah. And if long range trucks and buses use it or does not mean that that infrastructure would fit to cars too. Like filling stations would probably be truck distance between them.

 

Creating hydrogen with electricity is very energy ineffective compared to just have a battery.

[thechinchinsong]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I can confirm this as a landlord.  I’ve actually got off street parking and setting up charging for one vehicle (just mine) cost $10,000, and isn’t even really complete yet.  I’ve got pipe to run cable for tenant cars but only because I was thinking about this 10 years ago and planned for it.  I still ran into a blockage though because the apartment power setup still isn’t strong enough to even take electric vehicle charging.  I would have to run entire new mains services and I can’t because the power company doesn’t run lines big enough in my area.

 

Its a problem that will soon becomes a big problem.

Is this like a 240v line or some special stuff specifically for electric vehicles (like a tesla supercharger)? I'm from the US (and live in the suburbs) so most everyone in my area has a 240v in the garage or something similar, but I can see it being a real problem for apartments and condos that aren't near any existing infrastructure.

[Kilrah]

6 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

I'm from the US (and live in the suburbs) so most everyone in my area has a 240v in the garage or something similar

That's the point, most people in the world do not have the luxury of having their own garage, at best they have a spot in the street. Basically excludes an EV from the get go, unless you're happy to regularly go lose some time at a café or something near a public charging station or parking far from home at one. 

 

22 hours ago, willies leg said:

I'm sure haters are gonna hate, but I'll tell you what, everyone I've talked to about theirs (mostly strangers at the superchargers) love their Teslas. I'd never go back to ICE.

People don't hate. They just understand that several of the things that make it interesting for you NOW are still part of the "launch phase benefits" and will vanish on the longer term. As number of EVs grow your 60% energy savings will vanish or reverse as governments lose on taxes from petroleum products and transfer them to EVs, and energy companies have to raise prices for that use becasue they don't have the capacity to meet the demand anymore. Unless you have your own power source of course. I have a family of friends with 2 Teslas, they love them, and can "fill up" for free and really "green" from the big solar installation they have at work. Said installation is a great example of how things evolve - the company was subsidised a few years ago by the government to install a solar system feeding to the grid since they have a massive roof area, and nowadays things at power companies have changed and they'd basically have to pay more to keep it connected to the grid than what they get from the sale of the electricity, so the entire installation was disconnected and became basically useless. Gets some use again just because of the Teslas. But there's no doubt EV owners will sooner or later face similar political stupidities.

 

2 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

Just a recent example of battery innovation has been progress in the introduction of graphene on a larger commercial scale

The advantages of graphene batteries are not where an EV needs them. Pretty irrelevant in this application. And they don't solve any of the materials availability difficulties - they  just add one more. 

[Blademaster91]

On 3/10/2020 at 1:49 PM, jagdtigger said:

"Refilling" is still irritatingly long unless you use their battery killer charger(whatever BS they spreading Li batteries still degrade faster above one C charge current), and even then an IC car is still faster to refill. As for maintenance it will get negated by the insane price. From that money you could buy a okay IC car and maintain it for 10 years at least....  Its just not economical to buy one. Especially in my region where ppl cant even afford a new IC car, let alone an EV. (For instance my 13 year old golf costed about 5k €, i was able to pay out 3000 from pocket the rest is loan. And im one of the few who had enough reserve cash to do this(most ppl live month-to-month without/very minimal reserve. Next up is getting my own house,  my rough estimate is it will cost around 100k €. I get less than 1000€ a month....)

I've never heard of supercharging being an issue for battery cycles, but faster battery degradation could be an issue if you plan to keep the car for years as most people do with an IC car. If you don't drive much and want a car loaded with tech an EV might be fine, but I'd rather not have a tesla which is an ipad with wheels. The cost is too much for the build quality, panel and door fitment is often worse than vehicles that cost much less, repair is also difficult and you need to be near a tesla dealer for repairs.

IMO charging is the issue holding back EV's, most people can't afford to have a charging system installed, and it isn't practical for most people to run a charger from their home or apartment out to the street where their car is parked.

[Kilrah]

On 3/10/2020 at 7:49 PM, jagdtigger said:

(whatever BS they spreading Li batteries still degrade faster above one C charge current),

Supercharger is about 1C, not more.

[Commodus]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

So you think the government will grin and bear the loss of one of their biggest income?   (fuel tax, dont kid yourself that they wont be able to do it) To top it off as demand rises power companies will start to entertain the idea of asking more for electricity used for EV's............

Oh, I won't deny that they'll try to make up for declining fuel taxes elsewhere, but it's not clear you'll be paying just as much as you would at the pump.

 

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Im not saying it peaked but i do recognize a dead end when i see it. Its just not feasible to make that many batteries. Latest example how the production of e-tron stopped because battery shortages.

The problem at present isn't a general limitation on battery production; it's a limitation on production at companies that aren't Tesla.  The company is successful in no small part because it has a tremendous amount of experience in and resources for producing EV batteries at scale.

[Kilrah]

4 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Oh, I won't deny that they'll try to make up for declining fuel taxes elsewhere, but it's not clear you'll be paying just as much as you would at the pump.

I actually expect it will be more. As things transition not only it will put a strain on electricity production raising prices for that (and taxes carried over), but also demand for petroleum fuel will decrease, which will reduce gas prices. So I'd expect that once EVs start really gaining traction they'll quickly become more expensive to operate than ICE vehicles.

[Bombastinator]

30 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

Is this like a 240v line or some special stuff specifically for electric vehicles (like a tesla supercharger)? I'm from the US (and live in the suburbs) so most everyone in my area has a 240v in the garage or something similar, but I can see it being a real problem for apartments and condos that aren't near any existing infrastructure.

It’s not the power grid  infrastructure so much, though that certainly doesn’t help.  I do wish I lived in an area with three phase power.  It’s the amperage ratings of the individual unit electrical boxes and the amperage rating of the house service itself.  I’d need to split the house into two services and rewire  literally everything to get more total House amperage. I’ve already got 1 100amp service which is as high as the local power grid goes, and the unit electrical boxes are basically full.  To make it more annoying there isn’t physical space to put in bigger electrical boxes, and 240amp breakers require access to both “phases” so they are limited in where they can go in a box.

[Engineer.AI]

To be fair, and also being appreciative of the feat Tesla has achieved - rich people will basically throw away their money at anything! Musk and Tesla were able to hit a nerve so hard, now their cars have a 11 months waiting period (the demand is that high). However, it is the working class, the everyday commuter, the mileage expert - who really needs to move to a battery operated car, and not some rich billionaire/ politician.

~Engineer.AI

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Engineer.AI said:

To be fair, and also being appreciative of the feat Tesla has achieved - rich people will basically throw away their money at anything! Musk and Tesla were able to hit a nerve so hard, now their cars have a 11 months waiting period (the demand is that high). However, it is the working class, the everyday commuter, the mileage expert - who really needs to move to a battery operated car, and not some rich billionaire/ politician.

~Engineer.AI

The S was a bit that way.  It’s not the only model they make though.  The cars are only slightly more expensive than gas cars but are cheaper to run so the prices is about the same.  It’s sort of like paying for your gas up front.  Most of the price of the car is batteries, and battery prices are coming down.

[thechinchinsong]

14 hours ago, Kilrah said:

 

 

The advantages of graphene batteries are not where an EV needs them. Pretty irrelevant in this application. And they don't solve any of the materials availability difficulties - they  just add one more. 

Can you give me some specific as on how grapheme doesn't help and what areas EV batteries actually need to improve in? Also, when we get to a point when 60% of all savings are gone from EVs due to government subsidies being removed, that will be the point when charging stations will also become more widespread. It will simply remove one benefit (subsidies), but by then, a negative will be pretty much solved as well.

[Bombastinator]

21 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

Can you give me some specific as on how grapheme doesn't help and what areas EV batteries actually need to improve in? Also, when we get to a point when 60% of all savings are gone from EVs due to government subsidies being removed, that will be the point when charging stations will also become more widespread. It will simply remove one benefit (subsidies), but by then, a negative will be pretty much solved as well.

My memory is the issues with car batteries are cost per mah, charging speed, and mah/gram.

 

cost per mah is the big one though.

[thechinchinsong]

21 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

My memory is the issues with car batteries are cost per mah, charging speed, and mah/gram.

 

cost per mah is the big one though.

Does graphene not help with any of those three factors? Also, specifically for cost, I thought you said earlier that the cheapest Teslas weren't that much more expensive than their luxury sedan counterparts (i.e. Tesla model 3)? I thought graphene did actually help with charging speed as well as battery wear, especially when integrated into existing Lithium batteries. Maybe I'm mistaken. This in turn translates into reduced costs (since there will be less need for redundant cells in EV battery packs).

[Bombastinator]

Just now, thechinchinsong said:

Does graphene not help with any of those three factors? Also, specifically for cost, I thought you said earlier that the cheapest Teslas weren't that much more expensive than their luxury sedan counterparts (i.e. Tesla model 3)? I thought graphene did actually help with charging speed as well as battery wear, especially when integrated into existing Lithium batteries. Maybe I'm mistaken. This in turn translates into reduced costs (since there will be less need for redundant cells in EV battery packs).

The problem is “integrated in” really isn’t a thing.  There are different battery chemistries.  Some might contain graphene.  If they do they’re different chemistries though.  You can’t just treat batteries with “graphene magic”

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, thechinchinsong said:

Can you give me some specific as on how grapheme doesn't help

The main significant benefit of graphene-containing lithium batteries is increased power density, but there is no need for that, current batteries are plenty capable of delivering all the power you can possibly transfer to wheels with no problem. 

They may be a bit more durable, but... that's theory at this point. There are Teslas running just fine on their original battery that are older than the oldest graphene battery...

[thechinchinsong]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

The problem is “integrated in” really isn’t a thing.  There are different battery chemistries.  Some might contain graphene.  If they do they’re different chemistries though.  You can’t just treat batteries with “graphene magic”

I understand that the first source is pretty click-bait-ey, but overall, what they are saying makes scientific sense (more professional source in the second link ). It seems like, yes in fact, you can just treat batteries with "graphene magic". 

 

Quote from the CEO of Real Graphene:

“Graphene is an amazing conductor of heat and electricity. Lithium doesn’t like it when you put a lot of energy in and when you take a lot of energy out. We’ve applied graphene in two different ways. We mix it in the solution with lithium, plus we’ve add a composite layer, like a sheet of it, in the lithium battery. It acts as a conductor for the electricity, and doesn’t generate as much heat.”

 

I understand people doubt the authenticity of start-ups and new tech companies nowadays, but what they are promising makes sense from a scientific stand-point. The company was founded byUC Berkeley grads who were researching graphene and have managed to produce reasonably high-quality graphene sheets for reasonable costs. Again, I understand the credibility of Berkeley graduates isn't the highest (most higher education is called into question these days), but these aren't unreasonable claims.

 

Obviously, this isn't Tesla, but it seems that the usage of graphene isn't the problem. The problem has been the cost of the process to create graphene as well as the purity/shape of the graphene that is used (which seems to be improving).

 

https://www.realgrapheneusa.com/graphene

https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/real-graphene-battery-interview-samuel-gong-ces-2020/