Electric vs Conventional - What Happens Over the Next Decade?

I see EVs as great for urban drivers. You don't need >200 mile range, plenty of places to plug in every night. But until there's a network of inter-compatible fast charging stations, they won't displace ICEs for long drives or get widespread adoption.

Green mandates will keep getting pushed back until this happens.

I know the Tree huggers are pushing for it. But I don't see the total change to EVs happening anytime soon. The infrastructure for charging stations is just not there. And I know the manufacturers are saying they are going to start pushing out EVs in the future. But I dont' see the public buying them in mass just yet. I'm thinking about changing out my wife's SUV next year. I possibly will buy a hybrid. But not an EV. I know of friends that have attempted to do a long trip in an EV. It was a pain in the ass finding places to get it charged.

I’ve been thinking the same thing and wondered how long should I hold on to my expensive Mercedes, right now I can get just about what I paid for it and I wonder how long will it retain decent value, problem is right now the electric support infrastructure isn’t very convenient I suppose I could charge at home but if I need to take a longer trip it will be not yet be very convenient

Oh I remember a guy telling me that owns an EV. Say you’d do the conversion at your home to efficiently charge your EV, the average neighborhood across the US can only sufficiently supply enough power to 4-5 garages in each neighborhood unless the entire system (for that neighborhood) is upgraded.

Ford is coming out with an electric F 150 in 2022 that is unbelievable. $40k base price. 4x4 with 426 horsepower. $50 k version has 560 hp and 300 mile range.

Comes with 4 120 volt outlets so it is literally a mobile workshop

There are several huge EV car makers in China that are going to enter the US car market in the next 12 months. They will undercut everyone on price. It could be a game changer. Suddenly, EVs will be available at the price of ICE vehicles.

Selling my car now would be like selling my house right now. I would get a great price for it but buy what?

A vehicle with a 300 mile range, which would be less in the cold winters here, would be completely useless to me. I couldn't imagine not being able to go to places I like without plugging in the car and wasting a long fucking time. The idea China will be selling cars here is ridiculous. We'll be shootng each long before that becomes feasible.

“Say you’d do the conversion at your home to efficiently charge your EV, the average neighborhood across the US can only sufficiently supply enough power to 4-5 garages in each neighborhood unless the entire system (for that neighborhood) is upgraded.”

He must be talking about Level 3 charging which would be equivalent to installing a Tesla Supercharger in every house. Most people will get a Level 2 charging system which can plug into an electric dryer outlet and can easily charge a sedan in less than 8 hours. You leave it plugged in to charge overnight like your cell phone.

Thats great I can drive to skiing, ski all day and then sit next to a charger for 8 hours before I can drive home. Rather see the planet end in 10 years.

The market is too high due to chip shortage, so once that gets ironed out then the market will be flooded with new inventory and get soft, in theory. This will be true, if the automakers ramp up production in the near future. Still, just like housing, once supply picks up you’ll see better deals.

The reason prices keep getting higher is that our currency is sinking.

I agree with Tetradon about Urban versus Rural.

I am surprised by the EV bullishness, but they seem to know that they are doing, 4th largest car maker in the world, employing 400,000 people. An impressive presentation.

EV day 2021 (works on FoxFire) stellantis.com

SJG

The conventional wisdom is that we will turn some sort of corner, maybe a sudden jump in battery technology, and there will be far more demand for EVs than can be met. For a period of years, there will be far more capacity for Combustion Engine production than we need, and far less production of EVs than needed to meet demand. When it happens, it will happen fast. That mismatch could put a lot of car companies out of business.

Well Stellantis is committed to that being their work of the next 4 years.

Think about it, if you got 500 mile range and the battery cost and weight would go down radically, why not. Seen now a couple of guys driving Porsche Tacans, and those things really move. And when they come to the next stop light it doesn't just all go into wearing out the brakes, it goes back into the battery.

SJG

Bill Evans '64 - '75 youtube.com

“ The market is too high due to chip shortage, so once that gets ironed out then the market will be flooded with new inventory and get soft, in theory. This will be true, if the automakers ramp up production in the near future. Still, just like housing, once supply picks up you’ll see better deals.”

I hope your theory is correct Meat, especially coming from someone who wants to buy probably 2 cars within the next 3 years. I don’t care about the resale value for my current cars, I just want to lowest price for whatever I’m going to buy next. Pre-pandemic prices please!!!

mark94. I know you are a smart guy. And I agree with you on a lot of things. This one, not so much. I just do not believe the public is going to switch over very quickly. The technology needs to improve drastically. The infrastructure is just not there. And there will be a certain amount of skepticism even after these things are improved. My prediction is that IN 10 years, maybe 20% of all vehicle sales will be EV. Probably less than 20% then. JMHO.

Look at my link above to Stellantis EV day. They are looking at 4 different platform sizes, and they have the money to pull it off. And though an EV is heavier than a combustion vehicle, it can still accelerate very quickly, especially with drive on all wheels.

The computer chips thing I think is a non-issue. It would be nice for strategic reasons to get that 52 billion in Biden Bucks to build more of a domestic semiconductor industry. But as it stands, chip production capacity is still exactly what it was before COVID. And all the chips in a 2700lb automobile do now weigh much at all. So you don't need many shipping containers.

This shortage is just a wrinkle. And soon, no one will care about last years chips, they'll be on to next years chips.

I have been following Stellantis. They have announced small layoffs in North America. And they have announced they are dropping one shift and 1800 jobs at the Windsor Ontario plant which produces Chrysler Pacifica and a version branded as Volkswagen, in April. They site the chips problem. But I can't see that as continuing out that far.

What it really is is simply that our economic system has been broken since the 1870's and after this COVID collapse, this cannot be hidden any longer. Our system cannot create enough livable wage jobs, and it never will. So the economic squirrel cage will be running much more slowly, and leaving many more people out, and with less purchasing and less consumption.

Really we should celebrate this, but first our ethics and assumptions have to change.

SJG

Bill Evans youtube.com

I’ve read a lot of articles drawing parallels between EVs and other technology, like when the PC and the smart phone were introduced. The pattern is always the same. Sales are slow and only early adopters but them but then prices come down as volume increases and the demand skyrockets almost overnight.

^^^^ Cobalt, not a rare earth, but a critical element for the new advanced energy technologies, has been identified as a bottle neck. So Stellantis, among others, has got other chemistries for its Lithium Ion batteries.

SJG

I’m waiting to buy my next car and home for at least 3 years out. Too much $$ and liquidity out there right now. It will take a while for people to get hungry and want to work again. That will allow me to hoard some more cash, because borrowing costs will be higher then, and cash will be king.

Labor is revolting against the shitty jobs they have had to take.

SJG

How do the cabin heater and window defroster work in EV's?

Got links?

SJG

Well, the technology isn't going away.

The next 10 years will be a weird transition, because I believe that we will see greater adoption of EVs. Especially as new models that come out to address different types of drivers. The infrastructure will be built to make charging easier and faster. A single charge will likely yield greater fuel and cost efficiency than gas.

The challenges of sourcing enough rare earths and other natural resources to make EVs widely available and affordable has yet to be sorted out, but it will get sorted out. During the first few generations of gas automobiles, a good argument could be made that horses and wagons were still a better and more dependable option. But outside of Amish country and historic reenactments, I don't see a lot of horse and buggies in use.

Personally, I'm going to hold onto my non-EV car for as long as possible just to see how everything shakes out over the next few years. I want the technology to settle a bit before I invest. What I don't like is that as EV infrastructure builds up, the infrastructure for gas-only vehicles will go away. I like vintage trucks. Eventually, it's going to get harder to drive vintage and classic gas vehicles.

Blowing Hot and Cold tesla.com

We replace the heater matrix, which would have had engine coolant running through it, with an electric heater that has 400 volts running through it. The clever bit of the design is to ensure that we have a safe system that also minimises the drain on the car’s battery pack

So we use what’s called a Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) heater. It’s basically a resistor that increases its resistance as it heats up, thus limiting the current it can draw. That way it will never get too hot. Why do we use 400 volts for the heater? Well, unlike every other car, we’ve got 400 volts available, so we might as well use that — it means considerably reduced currents along the cables that run from the ESS at the back of the car to the heater at the front. And with the heater capable of pumping out 4 kilowatts, that should keep the cabin nice and toasty.

At the other end of the scale, we have fitted our cars with an all-electric air conditioning system to keep things cool. This uses a compressor similar to the one in a domestic fridge — only ours is blue and works off 400 volts. It’s at the front of the car, and pumps the refrigerant through the chiller unit in much the same way as a standard car’s system.

This raises a lot of questions for me.

SJG SJG

Well this infrastructure bill that passed is supposed add a lot more charging stations so we’ll see how that goes. I would say in the last couple years it’s a lot more common to see teslas on the road.

Once this car market nonsense calms down I’m going to be getting a car but I’m not making the switch yet. 10 years from now maybe but next year, na not yet.

I plan to ride my current ICE car into the ground, and it's a Honda so it'll be a long ass time.

Given how long it takes to build anything in this country, I don't see fast, easy, on-every-corner charging any time soon. In the meantime, I'm going to see which technologies become VHS and which become Betamax. Let others work out the kinks. Then I'll switch.

Fuck EV. I'd rather walk or ride a bike than ever drive something the government mandates.

And before you call me crazy, the government takes our tax dollars, subsidizes EV and wind power, then shuts off oil and natural gas pipelines, so FUCK YOU.

is anyone even reading all the stupid posts SJG is putting in this thread?

^^^ Nope.

Da shit truckz gonna be conventional dump a loadz

I would be fine with more people driving EVs as long as I don't have to pay more taxes so the government can subsidize the purchase of them for those who want to buy them. I also wouldn't want rolling blackouts if the electrical grid is overwhelmed by all the EVs being charged up.

The political left seems to be pushing EVs mostly for environmental reasons. The major cause of environmental degradation in this country, though, probably is coming from the rapid population increases. These population increases are primarily fueled by uncontrolled immigration as the population increases when people move here and then increases even more as they have children after moving here. The political left has actually been encouraging this since most of the immigrants vote Democrat. So, the Democrats are willing to sacrifice the environment in order to gain a political advantage over the Republicans.

Yeah, prices are insane. I recently sold a 15-yr-old Honda S2000 (that I bought new) for more than the original purchase price. Over the years, the car developed a cult following:

motortrend.com

It was a third car that sat in the garage and had only 12K miles and mint condition. Listed it online and got offers from all over the country. It sold to someone in N Calif. Sort of miss the car now; it was very light-weight, smooth engine, and had tight, precise handling.

My wife wants an electric car, but I'm hesitant for many of the reasons mentioned above. Worried about it becoming a headache after the warranty expires.

Apropos, today's paper had a fun opinion piece about the direction of the auto industry (clear browser cookies to read for free):

"The Look of Cars Is Driving Me Out of My Mind" nytimes.com

Eventually there will be more EVs on the road and therefor less gas tax revenue. The government will have to start a new tax system or the roads will deteriorate. I suspect it will be some for of tax per mile driven. I hate to think of what they will come up with.

In my view this is- very long term change. Detroit will take a long time to fully adapt to EV production (as it’s primary vehicle type). If the EV’s don’t require the service of ICE vehicles - that represents a significant loss of service revenue for manufacturers - and they won’t be moving quickly to lose that piece of their business model.

There are places where EV’s are a great fit - but they aren’t the best fit for lots of Americans yet. A lot can change in 10 years - but this is a huge transition. I think there are some cool EV’s out there - but I think they are still a niche segment of the market.

I might purchase an EV as my next car. But it would be a second vehicle. My ICE SUV will be my long distance vehicle - and the EV would be for short commutes.

I don't see this as so far off, my best guess is they will continue slowly picking up momentum over the short term, one day soon, we will wake up, and the number of EVs on the road will be greater than ICE vehicles, and we won't even remember how it happened.

My thought is - a big push won’t come from US auto makers - in the next decade. Unless the government decides to pay them for all their losses of revenue associated with the dismantling of their ICE production.

If this comes from foreign manufacturers - it’s possible. I think they can possibly pivot quicker if they don’t need to deal so much with unions.

However, I’m sorry, I’m not buying a car made by a Chinese manufacturer. I don’t want them tracking my every trip to my local Rub and Tug watering hole.

If any of you are knowledgeable on EVs, could you tell me:

• How long do the manufacturers say the battery lasts?

• Can you replace particular cells, or is it something like "replace the entire battery in 5 years" kind of thing?

• What's it cost to replace the battery

• Do manufacturers tell you that fast-charging will reduce service lifetime?

Just curious! I figure my next car may be an EV but I haven't started really looking at the technology at all, and am curious about the batteries, whether used EVs just have a $5000 battery change expectation built into prices, etc

^ All the cost of ownership articles I have read as well as the surveys including Battery replacement after 7-10 years and including annual maintenance to keep the battery in peak form, estimate a cost savings for EVs, over ICE vehicles in similar categories, of 50% or better over a 10 year period.

The Chinese are using older/simpler battery technology. Not as good, but much cheaper and not as reliant on rare earth metals. That’s one of the reasons they will have EVs closer to $30,000.

Battery warranties tend to be 7 years. That’s probably a good estimate of expected life.

The big thing I worry about with EV's in Florida is hurricanes. What happens when large swaths of the state are without power for days or weeks? What happens when millions of people need to evacuate and we've got 100's of thousands of EV's trying to drive 500+ miles in one day? On a day when it's probably 95+ degrees and large amounts of battery are used for AC. The concern is valid along most of the SE coastal areas, but I think most pronounces in FL where we can literally have large, populous areas in danger zones. Or even what happens when it threatens and every single EV is plugged in trying to top off like we do at gas stations today?

I'm for EV's and all, but like others have said I think the transition may have to be a bit slower than some would like. And it'll require some changes to how we generate, transmit, and store power to achieve the sort of flexibility required to support emergency situations.

I wouldn't worry about an ICE being worthless in a few years. I'm not sure I'd buy a chain of gas stations without a plan to diversify their revenue though.The average age of a car today is something like 12yrs old. It's not like gas stations are going to be Blockbuster's in 5-10 years. If we went 100% EV tomorrow, plenty of ICE's would be on the road for at least a decade. Even the tree huggers have to realize that it's less damaging to the environment to continue operating a reasonably modern ICE than it is to scrap it. A large chunk of the damage is done during production for both types.

I cannot believe anyone would have the nerve to pretend they're an American while supporting the Chinese Communist enemy financially. Traitors.

We gonna kick da Chinese ass back to da china

Don't give a shit about people who fuck themselves up and that includes illegals. Not our problem. The borders should be closed. You should be closed off on the other side with the other scum. Hitler was a socialist, just like progressives and scum like you boy. By the way Caca, meet ignore.

I guess you want to keep it charged up so in case of power outages, then you can just drive it out of there.

SJG

Frigid Pink youtube.com

Incidentally, if we are going to reduce our carbon footprint, and expand EVs, nuclear needs to be a big part of the solution. That’s the only realistic way to increase electrical capacity without carbon.

The technology for nuclear safety has improved dramatically sine the bad old days of three mile island, but it’s reputation hasn’t improved accordingly.

Most people do not want nuclear anymore, not fission, not fusion. Both have their problems and require much energy to even prepare.

Small local generation, like roof top photovoltaics.

And then, we just need to use less.

SJG

Tesla changed the game and proved EVs to both be viable and cool – the first EVs that came out years ago where frumpy looking cars w/ low-performance that no-one was interested in – Tesla made EVs cool and they have not only proven the technology works but that it’s often superior.

As I posted in a previous thread, a lot of things in society have gone from analog to digital – the EV is the digital equivalent of the ICE car; it’s in many ways just a computer w/ wheels – I think most people are sold on the technology and see it as the way going forward – for the avg person the biggest bottleneck seems to be the charging issue – for one, not everyone has an enclosed garage to put a charger at home for their car; and many people probably feel the current charging infrastructure is still inadequate – people are used to getting in their cars and just going w/o having to worry about where to “gas up” and that it may take a while when they need to “gas up” – i.e. the combo of not as many charging stations and also that it takes longer to charge, means you don’t have the same convenience as w/ gas-stations where there’s usually one or more stations a few-minutes away from where you are and you can usually get in and out in less than 5-minutes – I assume it’s not uncommon to arrive at a charging station and have to wait to charge both b/c there aren’t enough stations and b/c a car is gonna hog-up a particular pump for a lot-longer while it charges.

A 2nd issue is currently not enough low-cost models for the masses – even the “entry level” Model-3s and Model-Ys seem to get above $50K once you add the extras you want – but this seems like something that won’t be a big-hurdle to overcome – seems the biggest hurdle for many is the charging issue and its practicality.

I “assume” the transition would happen sooner than later if the charging-issue and it’s practicality can be resolved – I think the demand and desire is there by the general public – the ICE and transmission are the most expensive things in a conventional car and having those things go away w/ an EV I would think is an attractive proposition for most people – and not having to deal w/ noise-pollution from particularly big-engines like muscle-cars or trucks and their loud-exhausts is also attractive IMO.

I think the avg person sees way more positives than negatives w.r.t. EVs – and there are also a lot of forces at play to kill ICE cars, from governments to environmental groups to big-business (e.g. a lot of tech companies are trying to come-up w/ their own EVs; and Amazon which is a behemoth is trying to go all electric w/ its delivery-fleet) – there has been a war against fossil-fuels where governments are often blocking production and putting pressure on banks to not lend $$$ to oil-producers so they can finance further exploration and extraction – there’s gonna be a lot of pressure put on ICE manufacturers to where they are gonna be forced to stop ICE production whether they want to or not – the ICE car is likely gonna get the same treatment as smokers but likely worse.

Tesla made EV's into a status symbol. I think that is their major effect.

That Model S is huge, and very expensive.

But Stellantis has very big plans, and 4 platform sizes.

SJG

Once EVs become viable enough, I can see many left-leaning governments start heavily taxing and regulating ICE-manufacturers and ICE buyers to where it would not be doable to manufacture nor own; if they don't outlaw ICEs altogether.

Hopefully, when this is a mature technology, when your battery is getting low, you'll drive into a battery swap station. You'll drive over a pit like for an oil change, and a robot will pull the depleted battery out of you undercarriage, and put in a charged one. Maybe the swap station with have a mini molten salt nuclear reactor for recharging the batteries. And/or some windmills.

There was the idea about quick battery swaps for delivery vans. Something like a fork lift would take it down from the bottom mid section to swap it.

But as time has gone on, everyone has become more committed to fast charging and just straight p-EV.

You know that Frito Lay uses Smith EV trucks to deliver its potato chips.

I once tried to broker a deal to keep a supermarket from closing by getting charging stations put in. Their drivers have to stay in each store for about 1 hour, to arrange their merchandise. That would be enough time to charge their trucks.

Same if you make these Cold Car eutectic ice cream trucks on a p-EV chassis. Recharge and refreeze from ground power.

As costs and battery weight continue to drop, the change over seems inevitable. And Tesla has made a huge EV showing, making them into a status symbol.

Want to see some numbers of where they think the limits really are.

Watch a Porsche Tacan move. It is the most impressive.

SJG

I love my Tesla. Program the auto pot drive in rick mode and it’s a frickin’ blast. Sit back with a gin rickey in one hand and a rickarita in the other and watch the fun. It’s good to be a rick. ROAR!!!

I wonder what the range is for towing with an EV, especially in cold weather? People in the upper Midwest tow shit. A lot. Boats, snowmobiles, fish houses, ATVs and so forth. I don’t ask that as a skeptic. I just don’t know enough about the battery range and how it’s impacted by the type of driving one does.

I just read some article about towing with some of the prototype electric trucks, the Rivian, Hummer, and F150 I think were compared. Pretty significant impact on range. Towing boats is a big thing around here too, but we tow shit locally mostly. Ya'll northerners be towing shit across the state, we just tow across town.

The new Hyundai Kona Electric starts at $34,000. That’s about $27,000 net of the federal rebate. Basically, the same as a comparable ICE vehicle.

^^^^ Battery range and life is stressed by crosstown traffic much more than long range towing, the biggest drain on any motor or engine is starting from a stopped position, it takes a lot more energy to get a heavy load moving than it does to keep it moving, depending on what you're towing battery charge is reduced by 25%-60% I had researched this a while back when I was considering vehicles for my business, looking for a way to take advantage of a very generous tax credit offered a few years back.