Electric Vehicles discussion (was NJ bans Tesla dealerships)

My Subaru lets you turn off the lane assist, while still doing the cruise control that keeps distance. I can’t stand the lane assist and have it turned off (single button press on the steering wheel).

Just drove back home 500k yesterday on a holiday weekend. With the congestion and 2-lane highway, there were lots of times I had to hop out of cruise control. There was about a 100km stretch where traffic was tight enough that it was actually scary, so I drove without any assist at all. It doesn’t like it when you are doing 130kph and someone gets into your lane only a car-length or two in front of you! OR, if there’s a quick braking situation, it is pretty nerve-wracking.

 

I also drove yesterday, had lane assist and adaptive cruise control on the whole time... The only time I had to turn it off is when Waze took me onto a windy side road and the corners got too sharp for the radar to pick up the car in front of me, so it turned off the ACC. It was actually a pretty relaxing drive aside from the sore butt from spending about 8hrs in the car.

That was the first long drive we've actually done in the EV and it was actually a pretty easy drive. This is especially true considering how few charging stations there were where I was driving. We didn't have to wait at any of the chargers and most of them were working.

 

Huge fan of this!

I also noticed less people bumping lanes to get a handful of cars ahead over 10minutes. Still happened, but it used to be wave after wave of this type of driving.

 

In bump and go traffic, TESLA driver assist is very good. If anything else, it is the most useful feature IMO.

 

The Subaru is good too. It was traffic that was the issue. The assist large would have held, except it was scary when it would brake hard when we’d have to slow from 80mph to 50 in a few seconds. If I set more distance between me and the next car, then it would keep hitting the brakes as cars would cut in front of me with only a car-length or two in front.

My criticism is more about shitty drivers than the assist.

The land thing gets really annoying as other cars, and especially semis, would drift in their lanes due to wind gusts or whatever. I ride the line as I pass them, but the assist does not like that.

 

Yesterday was a first for me: I saw a line at a charging station. Five cars were charging, and two had to wait.

Five of the seven cats were out of state: 3 from NY and one each from Mass. and Vermont.

 

So I was driving through San Francisco yesterday and was stopped at a light. An emergency vehicle was coming the other way with its siren on, and one of those cars with the spinning camera on top turned off the side street the same direction I was going, and it struck me because it seemed to cut it a little close given the siren. But when I eventually pulled up even with it and look over…there’s no driver.

Which got me wondering, how do self-driving cars deal with odd things like emergency vehicles with sirens? Can they hear them and respond accordingly?

 

This is actually a regular occurrence in Seattle in the evenings. Except, all of our charging stations are only 4 chargers, which is so dumb.. I can't remember if I mentioned this, but it has gotten so bad that, despite me being very cheap and getting 3-years of free charging, I installed a home charger. I still go to the EA chargers most of the time, but I check the chargers to make sure there is availability before going and, if they aren't available, I use the home charger.

 

Also.. The more people that use ACC the better for traffic! I saw a study that determined that if some small percentage (20%?) of cars used "automation" to determine speed, traffic improved by a noticeable amount. Humans are a bad judge of how fast the car in front of them are going, so if there is unexpected slow down, they slow down too much and it creates a cascading effect that causes a phantom slow down. With "automation" that phantom slowdown is eliminated. Even with just a few cars having it, they'll lessen the effect of that slowdown.

 

This, if correct could be a real game changer.

New 621-mile range EV battery charges in six minutes and works in any weather
The battery charges in the time it takes to fill a car with gasoline.

Ameya Paleja
| Jun 07, 20


Chinese startup Greater Bay Technology has claimed that its new electric vehicle (EV) battery can work in any weather. Called the Pheonix cell, the battery uses superconducting materials and thermal management to bring freezing temperatures to normal room temperature in just five minutes, Bloomberg reported.

 

Hey, I just posted what looks like an interesting bit of info. I wondered about the logistics and the charging myself. Still it’s a start, the biggest hold up on EVs as I see it is charging and the times involved.

Thanks for your information and knowledge.

Interesting job your wife has though. She must have to drink a lot of water.

“I'm not trying to pee on your parade. This is what my wife does for a living”

Couldn’t resist, I did try.

 

Toyota is now claiming they'll have a 600-mile range battery. They at least have a decent track record.

 

Did they mention anything on charging?

 

The longer range is pretty cool, when you consider it's better for most batteries to float between 20-80% charge. So 600miles should give you 360 miles of range, minus using the heater and AC. Charging should be quicker in that range, although I really don't know what you are looking at, having no personal experience with EV.

Hopefully these new batteries are also more energy-dense, so we aren't just sticking a bigger, heavier battery into a vehicle.

 

From Reuters...

An EV powered by a solid-state battery would have a range of 1,200 km and charging time of just 10 minutes, Toyota said. By comparison, the Tesla Supercharger network - the largest of its kind - offers the equivalent of 321 km of charge in 15 minutes.

Toyota did not detail expected costs or required investment for the plans.

 

I mean you drop a 200 kwh battery in most cars and you can get 500+ miles.

Except the Hummer, that vehicle is not efficient at all and should not qualify for any credits.

 

Were choices are made, what if ECs had all those years of research.

Choices like Beta and VHS
Like cassette and 8 track.

 

Ford seems to be having trouble selling their electric vehicles.

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/fords-electric-mustang-mach-e-090200501.html

Ford is not the only one that seems to have a mismatch in supply and demand.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/evs-are-piling-up-on-dealer-lots-as-supply-outpaces-demand

 

Ford and GM are actually switching to the Tesla charger to try and address one of the issues that is preventing adoption of EVs. The CCS charging network is absolute crap right now. Not only are there a lack of chargers, but the chargers that are out there are absolute crap. That's having a pretty detrimental impact on sales of CCS vehicles. Compare that to the Tesla charger network, which is practically everywhere with significantly better chargers, and it really isn't hard to see why other EVs are struggling right now.

That being said, there's also the politics. My parents live in a red area and whenever I charge, it's interesting how much politics comes up whenever I talk to people about what its like to own an EV..

 

Also, Ford and Chevy dealers are expecting that demand to go high and stay high, so in many cases tack on 5-10k in "service fees" above MSRP.