Electric Vehicle Challenges - Energy Secretary Failed Test

Yeah I keep reading articles about how “Americans don’t want EVs” because there are a lot piling up on dealer lots.

I live somewhere where it’s cold in the winter and apparently that kills EV batteries distance, as a lot of articles have proven the past few years.”

One thing going for EVs is after time they seem to hold up pretty well and will only improve.

Give me an EV that can still take me 300 miles on a single charge even when it’s 15 degrees outside and I’m all in. I think most other people would be too.

Sorry meant to say over time EV batteries seem to hold up pretty well and lose minimal charging capabilities.

Yeah, they’re not for everyone but there’s a lot to like. Awesome power, barely any maintenance, no trips to the gas station if you have electricity in your house. It’d be perfect for a commuter car and we already take my wife’s SUV on long trips, so no change to our lifestyle if my next car was an EV.

A lot of families in cities seem to be taking the approach of having one conventional family car (minivan or SUV) and one electric commuter car.

It's understandably going to be a problem getting charging into the middle of the country where demand is going to be limited.

I have one, and have not had any of the problems (at least to any real extent) that I hear about. I have driven it on 3 seperate 550 mile road trips, and never had any serous issues charging it with Electrify America. One time it took 35 minutes to charge rather than its normal 20, and another time I had to move one stall over due to a charger being out of service. I charge it up at home for about a a buck a day or less, and never have to go to a gas station. Love mine, and would get one again. Even in super cold areas it can go at LEAST 200 miles on a charge.

I have an EV and I like it a lot. For me it’s the perfect commuter car, but that’s only because I can charge it in my garage on a level 2 charger. I would not want to rely on public charging stations. I would also not want my EV to be my only car. But as a second car or commuter car, there is a lot to like with an EV.

American War. Great book - about an American civil war mainly about the outlawing of fossil fuels by the US government. Written 6 years ago, but even more envisage today.

American War is the first novel by the Canadian-Egyptian journalist Omar El Akkad. It is set in the United States in the near future, ravaged by climate change and disease, in which the Second Civil War has broken out over the use of fossil fuels.

EVs are at their best in a radius around your home area... recharge it at home.

The issue is the electric grid capacity. If even a small percentage of current gasoline-powered vehicles were replaced with EVs today, there's just too much additional draw that would be required to support them.

See: youtube.com

If you were designing it from scratch you'd design a completely separate grid for automotive applications. You should not be charging multi megawatt applications with the same infrastructure that you use to cool your home.

In Norway, 80% of cars sold are EVs. Mostly Teslas. Only EVs can be sold starting in 2025.

So, they can’t be that bad in winter.

Tesla is working on a robotaxi. Two seats. No steering wheel. Big trunk. Driverless. Gull wing door.

It was assumed this was years away. Word just came out it should be built in Texas within 12-18 months.

Elon estimated it will cost $.18/Mile. A fraction of what Uber costs.

It will likely take a few years to reach all markets.

You conveniently forgot to mention there were zero Teslas in that convoy.

So this is just restating the obvious that Tesla has the dominant charging network in North America and that’s why all the other automakers are switching to Tesla’s NACS plug standard in future model years

most power in Norway is generated by hydroelectric. there are no nuclear plants in Norway.

I love my Tesla. Great acceleration, free Supercharging for life (bought 8 years ago), almost nothing ever goes wrong with it (a parking sensor, a door handle). It's true that it has 30% less range in the winter. It does burn through tires quicker. At home, our grid is about 1/3 hydro, 1/3 nuke, 1/3 coal, so yeah charging here does still use a little fossil fuel. I took a trip 800+ miles each way through the mid-east US to North Carolina, and had no issues finding or using Tesla Superchargers along the way, mostly at convenience stores I'd never heard of (Sheetz? Buckees?). For fun I looked up the composition of the grid at some of them, and it was a surprise to me that the one in NC was 90+% nuke rather than 100% coal. I used a site called evtripplanner to plan my charging stops on the trip.

It's my only car. I drive it in the winter, in blizzards, on trips, everything.

The experience may indeed be quite different for an EV which can't use Tesla chargers. Musk was fairly clever about this, getting early adopters to pay a big premium for the car in order to fund the charging network. Other auto manufacturers buried their heads in the sand and now don't have a charging network.

However, never believe any time estimate from Musk. Robotaxis might happen someday - or not - but I would be quite surprised if it happened within 18 months.

I love EVs, but I don't believe in government mandates. As far as I'm concerned, if you like your ICE then keep using it. Unfortunately they haven't made me Emperor, so the laws are what they are rather than what I think they ought to be.

Politicians and their lackeys being what they are, I'm not surprised at the tone deafness of one of them blocking a charger during a road trip to promote EVs.