4 hours ago, dave2013 said:

This is the kind of stuff I've been talking about where EVs are concerned.  I'm glad that impartial people are writing articles like this as I always think that people should know *all* the facts about anything.

 

Your response was in regard to Noel saying "excellent for short distance commuting". 300 miles is not short distance commuting, neither is 200 miles or 100 miles. 🙄

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

And using a commercial charger costs more than charging at home

 

But still far far cheaper than filling your car with petrol. 🙄

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

For all these reasons road trips in an EV takes longer and is more challenging than road trips with a gasoline vehicle.

 

Of course it takes longer. But we all have to go to the toilet and eat a meal. Do it while it charges. Road trips should take longer, very dangerous to attempt a long trip without breaks. As Matt says in the video below, charging isn't an issue, by the time he's done a bit stop and got something to eat, his model 3 is fully charged and ready to go.

New breakthrouh in the video below, fully charged in 10 minutes.

 

 

 

 

During the Oscars I saw an ad for a new Lucid Air EV - a luxury car that gets 500 miles to a charge.  Apparently it only gets 460 and costs over $70,000 but Ive never owned any car that had a single tank range like that.  The range numbers are quickly increasing and the battery technologies are making what appears to be serious advances (if solid state batteries are actually here).

I think these new technologies should transfer to home power as well.  Batteries that hold more and charge faster and are even lighter weight as I understand.

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

But we all have to go to the toilet and eat a meal.

Only when you have your wife along.  They have to stop at every rest stop along the highway.

When I used to drive cross country alone I covered over 500 miles a day.  A rest stop took no more than 10 minutes.  I ate a large breakfast before starting out in the morning with a full tank of gasoline.  I skipped lunch and when I got to my overnight stop I filled the tank and ate dinner.  If I had to buy gasoline along the way to stretch my range it only took a few minutes.

Martin...before you talk to me about how far one drives in a day you should try driving between Laramie and Rock Springs Wyoming on a hot summer day.  Or even between Roswell and Albuquerque.  Between Roswell and Vaughn 100 miles north with only one rest stop and no place to even buy a snack in between.

What is the furthest distance between towns on your island or in Britain proper?

Noel

10 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

you can find similar Horse vs. Automobile debates over the same, range, reliability, etc.  

And at that time horses were easier to start, ran faster and had a longer range and more available fuel.  "Get a horse!" was a popular refrain at the time.

I'm talking about NOW.  I"m living in the present, NOT five years from now when I'll probably be driven to doctor appointments in the nursing home shuttle.  My Prius is ideal TODAY even if I have no road trips planned.  And filling the 11 gallon tank twice a year is no strain on my budget even if the price of gasoline goes to seven or even ten dollars a gallon.

I've just stopped shopping for an electric car.

Noel

Edited March 30, 20224 yr by birdguy

5 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Your response was in regard to Noel saying "excellent for short distance commuting". 300 miles is not short distance commuting, neither is 200 miles or 100 miles. 🙄

Again, you live on a tiny island and come from a relatively small country where 600 miles gets you from the south coast of England almost to the north coast of Scotland.  An EV would be ideal for your purposes.

We used to drive from where we lived in New Mexico to my home state of Tennessee every year, a distance of 1,350 miles, 2,700 miles round trip.  I do not want to have to stop every 300 miles and wait for an hour to charge my car.  Yes, I'd probably stop anyway, but it would be a 10-minute stop.  I had a friend who drove almost 2,000 miles to visit his parents every year.

Dave

42 minutes ago, birdguy said:

When I used to drive cross country alone I covered over 500 miles a day.  A rest stop took no more than 10 minutes.  I ate a large breakfast before starting out in the morning with a full tank of gasoline. 

 

Why 10 minutes? According to the safety experts we should take a 15 minute break every  two hours. To ensure we remain alert and avoid accidents.  

 

46 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Between Roswell and Vaughn 100 miles north with only one rest stop and no place to even buy a snack in between.

 

100 miles isn't excessive. But if there's a very long stretch with nowhere to eat, then it would make sense to take plenty of food and stop frequently enough to avoid the danger of tiredness and accidents. The research is very clear on this, driving for very long stretches causing tiredness can kill. 

 

49 minutes ago, birdguy said:

What is the furthest distance between towns on your island or in Britain proper?

 

Lands end to John O'Groats 837 miles. 

51 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Again, you live on a tiny island and come from a relatively small country where 600 miles gets you from the south coast of England almost to the north coast of Scotland.  An EV would be ideal for your purposes.

 

Correct. Except its 837 miles max. 

 

51 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

 I do not want to have to stop every 300 miles and wait for an hour to charge my car.  Yes, I'd probably stop anyway, but it would be a 10-minute stop.

 

Its 30 minutes to charge the car unless its a slow charger. And only 10 minutes to go to the toilet and have a meal is unrealistically fast. Only resting for 10  minutes after driving 300 miles and then straight back in the car again and doing the same gain, is very dangerous. Not just to you but others on the road. 

 

51 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

We used to drive from where we lived in New Mexico to my home state of Tennessee every year, a distance of 1,350 miles, 2,700 miles round trip.

 

Is that all, just once per year? I don't think I'd abandon the idea of an electric car that's super cheap to run, fantastic performance, just for one long trip per year. Like I said when we debated this before, the average journey in the US is just 11.5 miles. If someone is a long distance salesperson or anyone who is frequently driving long distances then yes, fair enough, but for most people an EV is fine. And I'd say ideal when the charging network is bigger.

And you said "used to" drive 1,350 miles, so not now.

You're retired aren't you? In which case, be honest, how often to you have to drive more than an EV round trip would give you, with lets say one stop to charge, 600 miles lets say?

 

 

Quote

 

Study: 60% Of Trips Were Less Than 6 Miles, Range Anxiety Overblown

The data goes further to show that long trips are much more uncommon. Some 75 percent of the travels were under the 10-mile mark. Additionally, 8.4 percent were 11 to 15 miles long, while 95 percent of trips were less than 30 miles.

This type of data can help prove that many people in the U.S. would be able to charge their electric car at home most of the time and would rarely experience range anxiety.

 

https://insideevs.com/news/338913/study-60-of-trips-were-less-than-6-miles-range-anxiety-overblown/

Edited March 30, 20224 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

I don't think I'd abandon the idea of an electric car that's super cheap to run, fantastic performance, just for one long trip per year.

Why are you so desperate to convince everyone to buy an electric vehicle?  I just wonder what your agenda is.

Why don't you own an EV?  Just because you live on a tiny island doesn't mean that no one needs to drive.

Dave

At 50+ MPG I have a 500 mile range with a top of the line Prius that cost 33,000 dollars new.  For that kind of range in an electric car I'd have to spend twice that much.

 Rob and Martin...you aren't perchance electric car dealers are you?  

Noel

 

29 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Why are you so desperate to convince everyone to buy an electric vehicle?  I just wonder what your agenda is.

 

Lets be nice to each other, no need to be rude. I'm not desperate to convince anyone to do anything, Its just that I am hearing things said that aren't true so I am countering them with the facts. I'm also not seeing a balanced opinion, I'm seeing a biased opinion against EV's. I'm actually unbiased, I look at the facts and its clear EV's are now very good for range, 95% of trips are short range so charging at home is more common than at chargers, performance is great. But the cons are that they are still expensive and the charging network requires more work.

 

34 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Why don't you own an EV?  Just because you live on a tiny island doesn't mean that no one needs to drive.

 

This is why I sometimes get a bit frustrated with you. You've said that a number of times before and I've given you an answer. Now you are asking me to give you the same answer again.

Here it is, so please remember it so I don't have to repeat it.

I haven't got the money for any car whether ICE or EV!

I have nowhere to charge one. I'm in a rented place with no access to charging as I have no garage or drive and no road in my vicinity. My daughter parks her car 15 minutes away in secur eparking.

29 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I think you're the one with an agenda, we post the facts and you elect to ignore them, you don't challenge the information, you just ignore it because it invalidates your belief.  That sounds more like an agenda to me, than what I and others have presented.

 

Precisely what I said too. I think both Rob and myself are simply seeing statements made that are inaccurate. We try to correct them but are ignored. Wouldn't matter if it were electric cars, ICE cars, planes, CPU's or any other subject, I suspect we would both counter anything we saw that wasn't correct. Facts do matter.

 

28 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Rob and Martin...you aren't perchance electric car dealers are you?

 

No, we are dealers in facts. We think fact is important. In this modern world of ours facts seem to be becoming less and less important. Its like we are living in a world were everybody's opinion is their fact. Nope, there is only one fact, the factual one.

, 

44 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I had a Mustang ICE that could barely do 225 miles on a full tank of gas ... does that qualify as "standard"?

 

Exactly. My ICE Mazda CX5 had 340 miles displayed on the trip meter when I filled it with petrol. I think its not just the range myth that will convince more people, it will be when charging stations are far more common and faster charging is here, faster charging that's akin to what people are used to with ICE cars. I posted earlier about new technologies that are enabling a 10 minute charge. 

49 minutes ago, birdguy said:

At 50+ MPG I have a 500 mile range with a top of the line Prius that cost 33,000 dollars new.  For that kind of range in an electric car I'd have to spend twice that much.

 Rob and Martin...you aren't perchance electric car dealers are you?  

Noel

 

Do you actually need a 500 mile range? Does everyone need that kind of range? If you have taken an objective review of your driving needs, and it sounds like you have, and bought the vehicle that suits you best, that's great. No one is trying to tell you that you need to replace it right now with an electric vehicle. In fact, doing so would be a waste of a perfectly good car.

The reason some of us push back when it comes electric cars is that far more people don't actually take a well thought out approach like you have, and get hung up on things like range that aren't nearly as big of a factor as they feel it is. As has been said a few times in this thread, most people in cities in North America don't actually need more than a 100-200 mile range since their car will rarely, if ever, leave the city it was purchased in (one study I read about this was from GM). On the rare occasion they do need it, renting an ICE or hybrid car for a weekend or week once or twice a year would be cheaper in most cases. In addition, many families have two vehicles where one could easily be an electric model for commuting to and from work with the second being an ICE or hybrid if they do need to make longer trips regularly.

At this point, the biggest real limitation for many, as you have noted, is availability of the cheaper models. After that another issue are those living in apartments or condos that don't currently have a convenient place to charge overnight at home or during the day at work. Something like your Prius would suit many of those people while still reducing the amount of pollution being pumped out.

Currently I have an ICE powered Rav4 I bought two years ago as I do make regular trips into areas where there are still limited options as well and longer road trips, if any at all, for charging an electric car, on top of not having a place to charge at home. Regarding Martin's point about needing to take breaks while driving, we cover that by sharing the driving. You can take a 5-10 minute break to gas up, use the restroom, swap drivers and keep going. With the still limited number of chargers in some places we drive, that would easily turn into an hour+ stop if there was a line up of electric cars waiting to charge ahead of us.