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The motors have never been the problem, it's always been the battery. See train engines, they are a diesel generator with electric motors.
This is where history pisses me off. We should have been headlong into battery research after the oil embargoes. Could have been 40 years faster.
The reason I'm pretty much undecided about EVs is the rare metals in the batteries. The pollution by gathering and the inhumane treatment of the workers who extract these resources. I'm still hoping for better alternatives in the energy storage medium
Electric cars is not the solution. Sure, it's an improvement, but for a real solution you need to get people out of personal vehicles on onto public transportation. Trains, trams, busses, whatever. Build it in a way that doesn't suck. Assuming american, the US had (past tense) amazing train/tram networks decades ago. Every warehouse had a rail spur, and since walking was considered ok people weren't obese fatasses.
I drive a scooter. It is possible to live without a car, although it does have some difficulties sometimes. If your job is within 10 miles of your home or less, then you don't need a car for your commute. If I can do it so can you. I'd still rather take a bus, if it existed.
I drive a scooter.
Friend and coworker of mine was recently in a deadly accident on her way to work on a scooter. Those vehicles are great but on a road that is still primarily built for cars (and is now inhabited by ever more massive giant pickups) it can be a serious safety risk.
you need to get people out of personal vehicles on onto public transportation
This is really the heart of it. It's an infrastructure problem. Frustratingly, this is the most difficult and time consuming problem to solve.
1 year and 6 traffic collisions later (all the fault of the car drivers), I still drive a scooter (not the same one I started the year with) and do not have a car. I believe that I do not have brain damage.
He is not wrong, but he is not adressing the actual criticism of electric vehicles, so it is kind of pointless.
And what exactly is the criticism of electric vehicles according to you?
"On the other hand gas has a much higher energy density than batteries and a much faster refuel rate."
Are those two things actually important?
Electric motors are a lot more efficient, and battery technology is quickly approaching the place where you can get the same range with an electric motor as with an ICE.
As for refuel rate, I spend no time waiting for my car to charge because it charges at home while I'm sleeping, so the refuel rate doesn't matter.
Plus the technology to battery swap is well in use for electric vehicles (see Nio, who have thousands of battery swap stations in China and some in Europe too). 3 mins and you have a full battery.
It matters to people who drive more during the day than their range allows. They don't want to wait 20 minutes for the car to charge every time they venture 300km out and back /s
Why /s? Road trips are a thing, and you'd be hard pressed to find a combo restaurant/charging station that's along your path.
restaurant/charging station combo
The people providing the charging infrastructure here haven't figured out this important point yet. Gas stations are a terrible place to put chargers, no one wants to stop at a gas station for fifteen minutes to an hour at a time. Charging stations need to be in places people will be stopping anyway, or at the very least places that provide something to do while waiting. Restaurants, shopping centres, tourist traps, whatever.
Here it's exacerbated by the fact that the fastest chargers we have only deliver about 60kW. Not even close to the 200+ some EVs need to get the fast charging times they advertise. But that 60kW would be perfectly fine if I could spend the time in a restaurant instead of standing around at a gas bar in the middle of nowhere.
Hell, even cheap (or free) "level 2" chargers outside restaurants and shopping malls would be a huge help.
I live in Denmark, here the chargers are placed where people park anyway. Grocery stores, parking lots, rest stops...
It's getting so easy to find a fast charger/resto combo, that we don't even plan it from home.
I've seen few 200+ watts chargers without looking for them, but the car is ready faster than I am anyway.
Road trips are a tiny fraction of all vehicle use, it's fine to relegate them to specialty vehicles.
Quick Google says a great majority of Americans take road trips. Even though it's a tiny fraction of their driving, it's still a deciding factor for many when choosing a car. Not all people have the luxury of affording a second car just for road trips.
Public transportation would be good, but there's less flexibility to it. For example, just yesterday, on a return from a roadtrip, I got stomach sick and had to request frequent stops. That wouldn't fly on a train.
I'd love it if we had affordable and flexible public transport for getting all across the country, though.
I take road trips in my EV. It’s fine. You get to pee and walk the dog. The extra time isn’t much and it’s actually way more relaxing
It’s weird how defensive people get over their cannonball road trips. It’s great to take a few minutes on a break while taking a long trip.
Hell, my ICE car warns me when I’ve been driving for too long. Taking a break mid-trip isn’t isolated to EVs
Unless you're taking road trips literally every other week you could just rent a gas vehicle when it's time for a road trip. Rather than make the decision of the car you're going to drive every single day based on something you only do maybe once a year.
It's why I don't own a pickup truck, I actually do haul cars, help people move and all that shit that people say is why they need a pickup truck but I just go to fucking U-Haul and rent either the Sprinter van or the pickup truck for 30 bucks plus mileage when I need one. And I do actually keep track of my financial records with a double Ledger Finance app I just went and looked and I'm still nowhere near the cost of a used pickup truck from all of that renting
Why do people still pretend it takes longer than 20 minutes to get a 50% charge increase?
Because it's currently easier to find a gas station than a charger that will do that performance. Now I'm willing to wait 8 hrs for 10%, but others certainly aren't.
You must live in a red state or the middle of nowhere. It's easy to find chargers everywhere I've been.
Yes, my point. I have to charge my car at home because of charging stations are either far, or Tesla owners park in them to do shopping.
Saying I live somewhere shit doesn't disprove my point that gas is more readily available.
Yeah because the conservative government of those areas is actively suppressing them from being built.
I'll keep my ICE and ride a bike. I'll still do less environmental damage than you because I am human powered for all but the trips to the mountains, and then I don't have to worry about being stranded without a plug.
And I have yet to hear a convincing argument that taking my perfectly working vehicle off the road to buy another manufactured product is still more environmentally friendly than... not buying anything at all.
I don't give a fuck about initial torque. I'm going to be laughing in my wheetabix when there's not a single EV older than a decade on their original batteries.
Downvotes don't make me wrong, chuds.
Approximately nobody is saying you should sell your 2020 compensator for scrap, in fact the general consensus is that the best thing you can do is keep your current ride in good repair as long as you can.
You don't have to invent boogeyman just because you have a weird parasocial relationship with big oil.