Elon Musk needs his own thread because he's in every damn thing/positive Elon Musk

There are advocates and there are zealots/evangelists.

May says EVs are great but for God's sake have something that tells me how degraded the battery is before I consider buying a used one. It could be 10% degraded or 70% degraded depending on how and when it's been used and charged.

 

Battery degradation is generally pretty minimal (1-2% a year) and can be figured out by charging the vehicle and seeing what the mileage is. We’re also only at the beginning of battery technology, so it is only going to get better. I don’t think you are appreciate how much of a game changer solid state batteries will be. They are lighter, smaller, and more energy dense than Lithium batteries.

It’s also not that different than an ICE. You really have no idea what abuse the engine has been thru and whether it is about to have serious mechanical issues unless you get it inspected. There’s also a far more likely chance that a used ICE vehicle will have serious issues with it’s engine than an EV. ICE vehicles have far more parts than an EV and requires far more maintenance.

 

Does owning four homes make you a housing advocate? I’d say that all that owning six EVs does is prove someone’s extremely wealthy.

 

For the majority of people it makes more sense to buy an EV than one with an ICE atm and that position will only get better.

The Renault Zoe does about 200 miles in normal use, (as opposed to the figures quoted by the manufacturer which is higher), and the average daily mileage over here is about 20 miles. In the US it's about 40 I believe.

The proportion of drivers that drive anywhere NEAR 200 miles a day is vanishingly small, certainly in most parts of Europe.

 

You've hit on something I posted about a while back -- don't remember if it was in this thread or another -- but we're just starting to get our EV technology going. Seems like all the detractors can do is come up with criticisms of why an EV can't go a thousand miles on a single charge that only takes 5 minutes to charge the battery to full capacity. I'm not saying we are going to get to that level of efficiency, but the technology has a huge upside, and that's going to take time to be fully realized.

 

TBH it's not usually the engine that goes wrong, if by 'go wrong' we mean the engine wears out. It's all the other bits of the car that fail like the brake, suspension, gearbox, etc. or some of the parts that are ancillary to the engine as a component, like cooling, electrics, etc.

So there is less to go wrong with an EV than an ICE but that probably doesn't make much difference to the reliability of the 2 types overall. IOW it's probably not a reason to get any particular type.

 

I'll wait then.

 

An article in today’s Washington Post mentioned that Norway has become the first country to have more EVs on the road than gasoline vehicles. Also 95% of their new car sales are EV.

 

That's because of massive tax and related incentives.

• No purchase/import tax on EVs (1990-2022). From 2023 some purchase tax based on the cars’ weight on all new EVs.
• Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase (2001-2022). From 2023, Norway will implement a 25% VAT on the purchase price from 500 000 Norwegian Kroner ($47,406) and over
• No annual road tax (1996-2021). Reduced tax from 2021. Full tax from 2022.
• No charges on toll roads (1997- 2017).
• No charges on ferries (2009- 2017).
• Maximum 50% of the total amount on ferry fares for electric vehicles (2018)
• Maximum 50% of the total amount on toll roads (2018-2022). From 2023 70%
• Free municipal parking (1999- 2017)
• Access to bus lanes (2005-). New rules allow local authorities to limit the access to only include EVs that carry one or more passengers (2016-)
• 25% reduced company car tax (2000-2008). 50% reduced company car tax (2009-2017). Company car tax reduction reduced to 40% (2018-2021) and 20 percent from 2022.
• Exemption from 25% VAT on leasing (2015-)
• The Norwegian Parliament decided on a national goal that all new cars sold by 2025 should be zero-emission (electric or hydrogen) (2017).
• «Charging right» for people living in apartment buildings was established (2017-)
• Public procurement: From 2022 cars needs to be ZEV. From 2025 the same applies to city buses

 

I don't see the problem

 

OK, so go do that in Texas, or Montana, or South Carolina.

 

I don't know what they mine or extract from the ground in South Carolina, but it happens in Montana for Coal and Texas for Oil - so, yeah

 

Isn't that the equivalent of this?

G20 poured more than $1tn into fossil fuel subsidies despite Cop26 pledges – report
Public money still flowing into industry despite agreement to phase out ‘inefficient’ subsidies, thinktank says

...

Fossil fuels release pollutants when burned that heat the planet and make extreme weather more violent. They also dirty the air with toxins that damage people’s lungs and other organs. Scientists estimate the air pollution from fossil fuels kills between 1 and 10 million people each year.

But beyond the overlooked costs to society, governments have lowered prices further by supporting fossil fuel producers and their customers with public money. The report found G20 governments last year provided fossil fuels $1tn in subsidies, $322bn in investments by state-owned enterprises and $50bn in loans from public finance institutions.

The total amount was more than double what they had provided in 2019, the authors found.​

I agree but, surely, it would help if we understood the arguments we need to be using to STOP that being the case.

If we're going to allow the fossil fuel industry and their political shills to point to the amount of support one country gives to EV's we should be pointing at the hand-outs given to the fossil fuel industry as a comparison.

 

That's fine. If you don't want to get an EV right now, don't get one. When the sale ban is implemented in 2035, no one is going to come into your garage and take your ICE vehicle. You can still continue to use it. Not only that, but even after 2035, the used vehicle market isn't going to go away. The ban is only for new car sales.

But the overall point that I'm trying to make is that saying a ban that starts in 10 years won't work because of the current state of EVs is just silly. There are so many improvements coming down the pipeline for EVs and they will get better and better the closer and closer we get to 2035.

 

As it happens I'm not intending to get an EV either although, in my case, it's mostly because I've averaged less than 2000 miles a YEAR for a decade Less than 1000 pa for the past 3-4 years.

Of course, that's also why I drive a 10 year old Hyundai that's got 18k miles on the clock... because the amount I'd save on petrol is never going to exceed the amount I'd spend on a new EV.

But if I was going to buy a new car, (if my current one ever went wrong, for example), then I'd DEFINITELY get an EV because the difference isn't worth thinking about and it means I'm not relying on that nice mister Putin or some other authoritarian regime.

 

All things being equal I'd go for a plug-in hybrid. They gets past the range anxiety. But things aren't equal. I've just moved to the UK so I have no insurance history and a Dacia with an ICE was very cheap to insure.

 

This already exists. Its possible to measure battery degradation either yourself (if you have the tools) or ask the dealer to perform the test. Just like you'd get an inspection done before buying a used ICE vehicle.

A lot of this really comes down to consumer education and research. People just aren't used to how EVs function.

For example, when calculating range, understanding the vehicles per km efficiency in certain conditions is way more accurate than relying solely on the vehicles guess-o-meter.

Or, understanding battery degradation is non linear. The first 1-2 years of life will have significantly more depredation than years 3 - 8 (on a year by year comparison).

Plus, many many other EV nuances.

I've owned my ID4 for nearly 2 years now and I love it. My only gripe is the ********ing wheel size, and thus, tire cost. But that's a trend across all cars and not specific to EVs.

 

On the subject of EV sales Patrick Boyle is live

 

Yeah.. My wife and I have only put on 25k miles and I've already had to replace all 4 tires.. Since the front tires are skinnier than the back tires, you can't rotate them and the tire that comes with is just bad.

 

Im guessing you got Alenzas. I've heard the horror stories.

I got a late year 2022 with Pirelli Scorpions. So far, so good at 15k. No chunking.

But yes, can't rotate either and they are staggered 20", so I know the replacement cost will be steep. Just hoping I get a solid 35k on them before then.

 

Heh. Yeah.. I had tread separation on all 4 tires. I took it in because I had a slow leak on one tire and the technician showed me the tread separation.. It was not pretty.

 

Mine was. I dropped my EV off before I went on a week long camp trip, they did all the warranty inspection/replacements, I came back and they were done.