The main reason I haven’t switched to EVs is due to the low range and high charge times. For now I’ll stick with hybrids. Great range and cheaper (10gal tank).
It’s not literal. But the idea is you plug it in in the evening, and in the morning you unplug it fully charged, which all told takes less than 30s of you having to do anything.
This is a very fair concern with a lot of people switching to EV. I’m lucky enough to be a homeowner with a garage, but if you don’t have a good charging solution either at work or home? EV isn’t right for you today.
One of the best parts of them is that I’ve had to stop to charge in route twice in 4 years of ownership.
Depending on your location, many municipalities are starting to cover the costs of installing EV charging stations at apartments. They usually ask you to pay a monthly fee for the service.
I’ve been driving a plug-in hybrid (Chevy Volt) for several years, and it only gets up to 35-40 miles on electric (sidenote: newer plugin hybrids get much better ⚡ range), but that’s enough for 95% of my driving. It has saved me thousands of dollars in gas over the years, helped with local pollution levels, and as far as I’m able to determine, has been better for climate change as well.
I have a Honda Insight and it has saved me a lot due to getting 49 mpg highway. Gas prices haven’t been an issue due to the small tank.
Don’t get me wrong, I want an EV and wish the US would subside some of the cost to get people to adopt the tech quicker. However, most of the EV companies are smaller with low production and low range.
For me, it doesn’t make sense yet. Hopefully, when the major companies start rolling out their products they will have better results. Plus I don’t want to support an open racist and let’s be honest a pedo.
I do have my eye on the Honda Prologue, 400 range would be great if they can accomplish it.
400-450 would be acceptable. With a range like that, I would also accept the current charge times. The range is the biggest issue though. Long-distance traveling is an issue for me in the US. Having to stop and wait for 30-40 minutes to charge is a lot when you are trying to go 600 miles. That adds up.
Did your family die at the hands of a tired driver or something? You are putting an awful lot of emphasis on something that doesn’t affect most people to the degree that you are hammering on about.
Yes, drowsy driving kills, we get it. Most people are not out there drowsy driving. They’re on their phones, or eating, or doing their makeup. Or even more common, they’re driving without incident.
Curious, what in the world are you doing that regularly has to on the road for that duration of time?
I’ve owned an EV for about 4 years now. The number of times I’ve been forced to stop at a charging station is twice in that time period. A stop at a gas station is easily 5-10 minutes, something I cannot do at home. The amount of time I’ve personally saved in traveling is huge. Days of time at a pump I never had to spend.
But, I’m only on the road about 2-3 hours a day for my commute. I’m not spending 4-5 hours a day driving very often.
I’m talking about family trips or business trips. From your statement, I can assume you are either in Texas or California. Both have better infrastructures due to being manufacturing states for EVs. So states are not as developed. Yeah, you can do home charging unless you are like many Americans and live in apartments. So places put in their contracts that you can charge there. A 240-range vehicle for me would be a lot of charging.
I live in Colorado, but your point is mostly valid. If you don’t have a home charging solution then an EV starts looking a lot more questionable.
My commute is about 60 miles. The car reports I will burn a bit over 50% battery going there and back again when at full charge, and after the full round trip it’s generally only off by about 1-2% from its topped off estimate. So for my own real world experience? It’s generally accurate for it’s range estimation and when it’s off I generally know why (Driving 85 mph on low traffic days does not help me at ALL).
But still, if your business has you traveling that much then yeah, an EV doesn’t make much sense.
My Model 3 has a real world range of about 420km (maybe 300 if I constantly go 160km/h). For long travels this is more than I need, as I usually travel with the family and about every 2 or 3 hours I need a break. Plug it in, eat something, your good to go an additional 200km with the charge you added. It also takes me to work and back for 4 or even 5 days. When I could not charge at home I could at work or while grocery shopping. I prefer this over waiting 3 minutes at the gas station doing nothing else than holding a dirty hose.
420km is not acceptable for the price of the car or long-distance traveling. In the US, that’s not anything crazy to do on a normal basis. That would add an extra hour to an hour and a half. Tesla isn’t the company to back, I’m looking forward to Honda and Toyota products. Hopefully, Subaru will start pushing EVs sooner than later.
It always amazes me that people are like “but I can’t drive it for 7 straight hours without having to stop for 15 minutes!”
Like… Get the fuck off my roads you dangerous dickheads. If you drive an electric cross country you’ll be charging it for as long as and as regularly as the minimum amount of breaks you must take in order to drive safely. Just fucking do it even if you’re in a fossil fuel car that technically could let you avoid taking those breaks. Why are people like this‽
Man, you’ve got no idea what it takes to make the world go 'round. There’s a whole group of people out there doing the hard work that you’d never do that have to work long hours, and have to drive long hours to maximize time with their family. It’s not that I -have- to drive 7 hours without a 15 minute break, but it’s that I’m going to regardless of what anybody says because I am living my life right up against the edge of maximum productivity. I don’t need the same amount of rest as the 58 year old trucker that’s on his second stroke, so I’m not going to follow these generalized “guidelines”.
We’re the ones that paid the taxes to get the road built, so why don’t you merge back into the slow lane and let us live our lives? Lol.
We’re the ones that paid the taxes to get the road built
Then why don’t you stop wasting your precious time here and spend it demanding those taxes go towards paying for changes that allow you to earn a living, and spend time with your family without having to make dangerously long drives on a regular basis?
You think the edge of maximum productivity involves driving 7 hours? What’s that per day? Trip? And do you think people who don’t drive 7 hours aren’t paying any taxes? And that you’re doing some kind of service to everyone else by driving so much? Or that your shitty situation applies to the majority of people who complain about EV ranges?
What an intelligent and nuanced opinion you have. Most of the drivers in the US drive less than an hour a day for their commute. (census.gov/…/one-way-travel-time-to-work-rises.ht…) Even if they jumped straight on the highway at 70mph, they’d still have 2 or 3 days before they would need to recharge. Not to mention that most of the time I average about 35mph on my mixed driving commute, the real distance most people drive is much less than that generous estimate. Charging overnight off a regular wall outlet will easily replenish those miles as well.
As for paying taxes to build roads, as a hybrid owner in my state, I actually pay more per mile than almost every other vehicle type. I pay more than my share for the roads.
Try thinking a little bit before you assume that your outdated dinosaur ways are the future for everyone.
I wanna preface this by saying I agree with you BUT aren’t electric vehicles generally heavier than their non electric counterparts? So paying more in taxes sorta evens out with the wear and tear that those heavier vehicles would put on the road.
That said, I’m just an ignorant dude with no sources so feel free to call me out.
Yeah it wasn’t until he started going on podcasts and sending wacky tweets people realized what an asshole he was.
Had he just kept quiet he would probably still have fanboys. At least up until this latest Twitter nonsense. But had he not gone ego crazy, he wouldn’t have bought Twitter in the first place.
I think the turning point was calling that diver that saved those kids a pedophile after they rejected his dumbass submarine idea. That’s when I went from thinking he was a force for good to realizing he was just another egomaniac with a temper he couldn’t control. It wouldn’t surprise me if the whole going to Mars thing was part of a manic episode where he thought he could go there and play Emperor but because he’s a billionaire it resulted in him at the helm of a spaceship company whose engineers figured out how to make launches very efficient.
And I think the Twitter thing was because he wanted to be able to do something about the people bad mouthing him on the platform. I wonder if he offered spez a bunch of money to ruin Reddit for the same reason. And if I’m right, I wonder how he feels about a bunch of those people just finding new platforms to continue disrespecting him on (and, at least in my case, glad to be done with the toxic hell Reddit had become).
And this is why I think plug in hybrids are the way to go for most new car buyers for the next few years. Unfortunately greenies think im a plague doctor peddling useless herbs and the diesel heads are convinced that I invented a way to replace testicles with soybeans.
A PHEV uses 5x less critical material than a compatible BEV, and people with one of these can be in ev mode 80% of the time or at least run the gas engine but get way higher carbon efficiency than ICE alone.
Unfortunately the new IRA bill nuked federal rebate for most of them and dealers are still charging an arm, leg, kidney, and firstborn in dealer markups
But what about the days that you do, do you have a separate car? Rent a car for any medium to long distance road trips? In the US the family unit is too spread out, hybrids are perfect for people that want the best of both worlds.
True, but after 200 miles I like to stretch my legs and hit the loo, which take about the same time it takes to charge back up again on a rapid charger.
That is three times a year though. The rest of the year I spend zero minutes tanking up. I just plug it in at home or work and pay fuck-all to drive around.
So realistically you spend much more time tanking up than I do.
My wife drives a Tesla and I drive an ICE SUV. We both drive a lot including long commutes. We have kids and busy lives which means frequently tight schedules to get to drop people off before work or get somewhere to pick them up or something else up after. Once you pick people up, you often have to get them somewhere and, once you do, you may not be able to leave until the next tight turn-around.
Having to stop for gas when I do not have time is a frequent problem for me. I greatly envy my wife who leaves every day with a full charge and who almost always manages to go everywhere she needs to go without running out. She “refuels” at home. I go further on a tank but I cannot refuel at home and so filling up is just another think that has to fit into the schedule.
For most “long” trips, we take her car. Far cheaper and again usually easy to charge overnight. Travelling between cities, we often combine grabbing food or taking a break from driving with stopping a charger. It does take a bit more planning but we have a lot more control over our time in these situations. In practice, it does not feel like much of an imposition.
I would take not having to worry about keeping the tank full day to day for a bit of extra planning on longer trips any day.
That is the stress and coordination aspect. Absolute time spent, it is not even close. An EV commuter spends way, way less time “filling up”. On most days, it is literally just a few seconds when leaving or returning home.
2 EV’s, one kid and one on the way. It’s really a non-issue.
Power here is stupud cheap and I charge for free at work.
We did some quick maths recently and figured we’ve spent less than 100€ on 30.000 km driven charging at home.
That’s less than two tanks of gas on any ICE vehicle. I’m never ever going back to it, other than on my motorcycle.
we often combine grabbing food or taking a break from driving with stopping a charger. It does take a bit more planning but we have a lot more control over our time in these situations. In practice, it does not feel like much of an imposition.
While you might decide not to, you ought to be planning those same stops irrespective of fuel or range. Even if you have a magic sci-fi car with it’s own micro cold fusion generator good for a 1000 years, you should still be planning the exact same rest stops for your driver.
I’m always reminded of the YouTube channel technology connections and his famous line “but sometimes…!” It really is a non issue almost all of the time but people always act like they will spend 60 minutes at a fast charger every day.
For my wife and I, we already have a second car we use for those longer trips. I suspect this is the case for a lot of people, including a family in my neighborhood that has a Tesla. So our daily driver gasoline car could easily be replaced by an electric car with essentially no change to our routines. And honestly a 200 mile range covers even the longer trips we sometimes take that gasoline car on. (Assuming that’s a real 200 miles. If it’s actually 150 then we’re going to need a charge.)
One thing I think about though is all the extra maintenance that goes into having a gas engine. It would be nice to commit and have the easier future maintenance.
It’s pretty dependent on driving conditions. If you do a lot of stop/start driving, they’ll die sooner. 75% of my miles are freeway driving since I have a bitch of a commute, so my battery is still okay. I’ll probably need to replace it in the next 40-50k miles
I’d rather see the gas engine as nothing but a glorified generator and have everything run off of electric rather than try to smash together two different drivetrains into some sort of franken-car like they are now.
Toyota hybrids are the most common taxis in urban areas of the UK, they absolutely eat up miles with no issues. If “every hybrid has super pricey transmission/clutch issues” then cab companies with razor thin margins wouldn’t be using them, pretty simple logic
Cab companies can afford to hire a dedicated mechanic to handle those kinds of problems. That makes even more sense when you consider they purchase mostly similar models over the years. An individual finding a transmission problem will take it to somewhere that is likely inexperienced with those problems and they get overcharged as a result.
No issues with mine, but I have a standard trans. Electric motors in hybrids/EVs are practically zero maintenance, and they reduce the peak stress on the ICE, so you extend the life of your conventional power train components. Regenerative braking also majorly extends the life of your braking components.
Chances are you need much less range than you think 330 days out of 356, and on the remaining you wouldn’t mind a coffee break to stretch your legs once in a while. Yes that even applies to travelling salesmen and the like: Go stretch your legs and run some numbers while you charge (but the X days out of Y will look different).
Where things get actually problematic is when people can’t plug their EV in at home over night or at work, though for city commuters that too might be possible to alleviate by making a picnic tour to a charger once in a while. But yes generally speaking most places need better infrastructure in parking garages and stuff.
More importantly, what we need much more of is not cars but public transit, well-maintained, reliable, frequent, and cheap at the point of use (roads get cross-financed by taxes so tell me one reason why not to do it for public transit), non-rural areas not supporting that kind of service need to be reshaped into being dense enough, as well as be walkable, that includes there being places you want to walk to, like schools, supermarkets, corner stores, hair stylists, restaurants, in a nutshell the kind of commercial activity you want in a residential area (looking at you, North American suburbia, where good living is illegal)
Because you know no matter how much I like the concept of EVs, and having spent ~2000 bucks on a license 20 years ago, I’ve never owned a car. I don’t need one. When I have something large or heavy to transport I take a handcart with me on the five minute walk to supermarket or parcel pickup, respectively. Somehow I never get stuck in traffic doing that.
on the remaining you wouldn’t mind a coffee break to stretch your legs once in a while. Yes that even applies to travelling salesmen and the like: Go stretch your legs and run some numbers while you charge (but the X days out of Y will look different).
Forget “wouldn’t mind”, you (one) absolutely owe it to other road users to take those breaks. It just isn’t safe to drive continuesly for hours and hours without them. You aren’t magically the exception, you are a human being like everyone else and you are not a safe driver after hours of unbroken driving. Without exception (and that does include professional drivers who sadly are contractually required to do so.)
As a Canadian American who currently hates Russia and what Russia feels is an appropriate reaction to Ukraine seeking to join Nato. Not to mention the number of children they have killed, civilians they have openly executed…I couldn’t hate Russia more than I do right now. Used to respect them and like Putin. Anyways, even though it sucks, Russia and China have every right to work together. We can’t control things like this. However, I hope Ukraine kicks Russia’s ass.
A weak Russia wouldn’t distract the flailing US empire’s focus while China continues to overtake the US. China is absolutely interested in a strong Russia.
It’s currently under question whether China will ever overtake the US in GDP. If you’re solely projecting based on the assumption that current growth will continue that is a sensible conclusion, but it’s a faulty one. First and foremost, China has a much older demographic makeup that will be a drag on economic grow. Second, the birthrate is significantly lower than the US (1.28 in China vs 1.64 in the US in 2020), where 2.1 is replacement. Last, the US has decent amounts of immigration that help make up the difference between births and replacement, while China is experiencing negative migration rates. China and the US are both attempting policy changes, but haven’t had much success.
I’m not talking about Russia, though they have the same demographic issues without the strong economy and with high rates of corruption. China does indeed lead in manufacturing, but not in overall GDP. There is no guarantee they will retain that lead either.
GDP is not the best measure of how large an economy is doing. That was why I referenced Russia.
A joke to illustrate why:
Two economicists are walking down a sidewalk. They see a dog shit. One pays the other 20 dollars to eat it. A spectator asks in horror why the man ate dogshit. He says “I felt it was important to add 20 dollars to the GDP”.
China does indeed lead in manufacturing, but not in overall GDP. There is no guarantee they will retain that lead either.
Oh, I agree. At some point in the 22nd century a pan-african alliance will probably overtake them.
GDP is not the best measure of how large an economy is doing.
What is the best measurement, then? Manufacturing capacity alone isn’t a good measurement, since that is just one part of the economy. Most advice I’ve heard is to draw from many different indices to produce a fuller picture of an economy, keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of each individual number.
When I use the word manufacture here I am referring to commodity production. Food, heavy industry, washing machines, putting together your coffee order. Commodity production+ distribution is the best way to determine how big an economy is.
The problem is that it devalues services, which are very much part of the economy. Services typically form a larger portion of an economy it develops further. This is as true in China as well, where there’s been diversification away from being “the world’s factory” to having a larger service sector.
There are some economists who feel both measures devalue things like housework that often get done more by women.
Service work is connected to distribution and commodity production and housework is constant. Everyone in aggregate does the necessary amount of housework to maintain themselves. Can a country do more housework to expand its economy? Of course housework is undervalued but it isnt connected to this topic because it is a constant.
I was just reading up on the three-sector model that we’ve been talking around. It breaks down into primary (raw materials), secondary (manufacturing), and tertiary (service). In this model, the secondary and tertiary tiers are essentially adding value onto the previous tier. It doesn’t make them lesser, just different. The theory goes that over time, economies develop from mostly primary, then secondary, and finally tertiary.
That model has come in for criticism as being outdated. One proposed additions is a quaternary sector that is unconnected to the other sectors. Instead it deals with knowledge like R&D, IT services, and entertainment. Another is the quinary sector, with human-oriented activity like NGOs, governments, education, child care, and healthcare.
China is just a few steps behind other countries in their mix of sectors. It is rapidly developing towards a country with less of a mix of manufacturing and more of a mix of the higher level tiers. That is good and desirable for the people of China.
Now, housework. The argument in favor of including things like housework is more that economics was founded by men with men in mind. They weren’t necessarily thinking of “women’s work” as something with much value. Factoring it in attaches a value, regardless of who actually does it.
It also provides a more accurate picture. Let’s say someone has a choice. In scenario A, they stay home, cook, clean, raise the kids, and generally act as homemaker. In scenario B, they have a job, pay a cleaning service, buy prepared food, and send the kids to daycare. If you’re just measuring GDP, scenario B is going to be clearly better because more transactions happen. But if you measure their labor in scenario A, you will get a clearer picture.
The three sector model bends over backwards to not acknowledge marxist economics that make more sense here. You really should read marx on the theory of labor value and commodity production. There is no such thing as a raw material.
Now, housework. The argument in favor of including things like housework is more that economics was founded by men with men in mind. They weren’t necessarily thinking of “women’s work” as something with much value. Factoring it in attaches a value, regardless of who actually does it.
It also provides a more accurate picture. Let’s say someone has a choice. In scenario A, they stay home, cook, clean, raise the kids, and generally act as homemaker. In scenario B, they have a job, pay a cleaning service, buy prepared food, and send the kids to daycare. If you’re just measuring GDP, scenario B is going to be clearly better because more transactions happen. But if you measure their labor in scenario A, you will get a clearer picture.
This is a good example.
For political reasons I do believe it should be measured, however for the purpose of a forum discussion it is a very complicated topic where it would be better to just exclude domestic service work given the data we have right now doesn’t in any way measure domestic work outside the formal economy.
If you’re interested in developing your ideas further from this good starting point I would really suggest picking up some writings of Alexandria Kollontai or reading transgender Marxism.
Uh, even if this is true, so what? China isn’t beholden to the west?
They obviously aren’t, but also the west isn’t beholden to China. We can and should react if they’re behaving in a way that’s dramatically aligned against us.
Finland has just joined the world’s most aggressive military alliance. Your “my country” shtick is out of date now. You’re part of the group of thug countries.
Russia has filled huge swaths of Ukraine with mines and I doubt Russia will be sending Ukraine their records (lol) of where the fields are after the war. The minefields created by Russia’s war of conquest will be an ongoing issue in the country for decades.
Assuming Ukraine wins the war, we will likely see a large rebuilding effort, which will necessarily include getting the majority of these cleared out.
Wouldn’t this be a gross violation of FCC regulations? I know he’s got the capital to deal with any fines, but surely this would get the FCC’s attention.
I was wondering if this violated false advertising laws? I’m definitely nowhere near a Lawyer, so I can’t begin to grasp the nuances of things like that but…
If someone buys the car under the pretense that it will drive 500 miles on one charge, and it consistently only makes it 350 miles, that’s not a variable tolerance issue like +/-10% . It’s a straight up “I sold you a falsehood” issue.
The BOJ seems to have taken a totally different approach to inflation and actually has an extremely loose policy right now. Even still, inflation has fallen.
Hmm. Just from a cause and effect point of view, this would imply monetary policy is relevant as the country that took a different approach has had different results.
No idea if that’s true though as correlation does not equal causation.
reuters.com
Hot