More than a Third of America's EVs Were Bought Within the Last 12 Months - Slash...

Posted by EditorDavid

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  by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Saturday January 06, 2024 @01:05PM (#64136735)

  I'm more than a bit annoyed that Tesla doesn't sell parts
  We need right-to-repair laws

  • Re: I love my EV, but...

    What can't you get? I picked up a new bumper from the dealer and brought to collision shop. I got new OEM Windshield through Safelite. I wouldn't want anyone but Tesla working on drivetrain.
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    • I wouldn't want anyone but Tesla working on drivetrain.

      Thats the main problem, mechanics aren’t trained to work on high voltage equipment and none of them have any training on EVs in general. We have auto companies charging over $60k CAD for a battery replacement that should cost $10k CAD refurbished and should be able to be repaired for $4k. It’s the lack of any training and freaking out over simple battery issues because they don’t understand electricity, electronics, or even basic smart battery fundamentals. We need right to repair and repair facilities need to be able to move into the 21st century.

      • Re:

        All I can add to that is that hopefully the auto industry has learned from this that fortune does not favour the unprepared. This is an opportunity for anybody with the ambition and energy to do so to take some serous market share from the big auto repair businesses whose management has been sitting with their thumbs up their fundaments secure in the knowledge that gasoline and diesel oil are still the future of the motor vehicle industry.

      • I saw a story not too long ago

        About someone who had a hybrid they bought and the warranty was expired and the battery died. The dealer wanted $20,000 replace the battery on a at best $12,000 car.
        
        After the news story broke the dealer cut the price in half because of the bad press but it's still 10K on a $12,000 car...
        
        I'm actually surprised I don't see more talk about what we're going to do about all these cars that are essentially worthless when the batteries go. I drove a 94 Honda Accord into the absolute ground replacing parts

        • Re:

          The problem is dealerships and the oem cost of replacement parts, not the fundamentals of actually repairing and offering aftermarket products. There are tons of companies offering products for a range of BEV and PHEV already, this will only grow and the price reduce. There is no giant pile of perfectly functional cars but for the battery and never will be. The real problem is the lack of right to repair and manufacturers doing everything possible to prohibit repairs, like Tesla.

        • Re:

          Used batteries for older EVs are cheap. You can get them refurbished, or even do the work yourself. It's basically the labour cost, and the warranty cost, that make it uneconomical for a lot of older cars.

          It's slowly getting better. Slowly.

    • • Re:

        Not really. There are reasons for that to be so expensive. First, the window is twice as big. Second, it's a custom shape and size used only by Tesla, so they don't have economies of scale going for it. Third, they have to detach the camera assembly and other sensors from the glass and reattach them correctly, then presumably recalibrate the cameras, so the labor is also higher. That adds up. You actually got a pretty good price. Some folks have paid well over $2k for replacement Tesla windshields.

  • Aren't there laws about that?

    I know that's why the dealers get the protections they do. How does Tesla get out of those requirements?

    • Re:

      Simple, Tesla has zero dealers.

      And actually, as I understand it, Tesla does sell parts. You just might not like the price.

  • Re:

    More importantly, how long does Tesla promise to support the firmware for?
• Some random guy hawking lemon parts for a Tesla would immediately lead to worldwide, coordinated headlines falsely accusing the company of providing faulty parts.
  • 2 hidden comments

  • Re: Can you blame them in this media environment?

    In the short term, but ultimately if people can't service these things after them being decommissioned from the original owners for affordable pricing, it breaks the circuit of access that lesser and comes depend on to maintain transportation.

    The cast stops of The Haves are repaired by the Have-Nots through direct labor and repair of the officially unrepairable. so that the have nots can continue to make it to work to keep everything functioning that the Haves depend on.

    For too many people in this coun

    • Re:

      This is already becoming a problem.
      
      No one wants to buy used EVs [fortune.com]

      • Re:

        Pretty much the entire used car market is underwater at the moment, but we do need some reliable metrics for determining battery health and state of wear. Simple odometer milage will no longer cut it.

        • Re:

          Not sure where you are, but used cars in general are commanding premium prices right now, though down from a year or two ago as the pandemic backlog of new cars abates.

  • Re:

    This is BS because there is nothing different about Tesla from other manufacturers except they make it difficult to impossible to buy parts if you are a repair shop. There are multiple lawsuits over this.

    • Re:

      That's one interpretation. The other is that they're assuming full responsibility for the quality of the parts and service provided, because the experience of ICE drivers with third-party maintenance is utter garbage since time immemorial. And, as mentioned, they would be blamed no matter what because the media is a fossil fuel-drenched cesspool.

      • Re:

        People don't take old cars to dealerships for service for a very good reason. If you have problems with DIY or independent service, that is pretty much entirely on you and nobody else.

        • Re:

          Yeah, yeah, yeah. "Buyer beware." The motto of con artist scumbags since the beginning of time.

• I read posts like this every day, especially those on youtube.

  One day is like:
  "Electrical cars are selling like hotcakes, people are switching to EV's at a record breaking adoptation never seen before".

  The very next day is like:
  "Electrical cars are taking a hit, people are keeping their ICE cars as dealerships all over are stuck with unsellable EV's".

  Ev's are too expensive for first time buyers.
  Ev's depreciation is too high, no one wants to buy a second hand Ev.
  Ev's batteries are too expensive, this couple drove over a small bump, now the manufacturer wants to charge 61K$ for repairs.
  Ev's are stuck in traffic in winter, can't handle the cold.
  Ev's are exploding all over in China.

  And then there's the other stories:

  "In Norway EV's are now outselling ICE cars" (yes because Norway subsidize with 50% of the Ev cost).
  "ICE cars also consume more fuel during wintertime, turns out the difference is not that big".
  "A ship with 4000 vehicles, 500 electrical - blew up!" (Turns out all the EV's survived, it was an ICE car that caught fire".
  "After 5 years, you need new batteries, an ICE car can last 30 years". Well, Leafs are still running around with 10 percent less power after 14 years on the market, nissan reports.
  "A city in Germany has been running on electrical buses and vehicles for 50+ years, still going". Well, well maintained batteries can last for a VERY long time.

  What is the point of my message?
  There's always two sides to a story, there will be for and against, advantages and disadvantages, but one thing never fails anything new enters the market, whether this was the launch of Television that killed the radio, or Internet that killed Television as we know it or streaming services that killed advertisement.

  Same thing for this, endless drivel being posted about this and that, for and against. And in a way it's healthy to be skeptical about things, but with the event of social media and "DIY" journalism and "for clicks" sensationalism, you need to be ever vigilant about what you read, get your facts straight, learn things, don't just buy into FUD.

  • Re:

    I bet that in many cases both articles are using the same exact data, but interpreting it differently to fit the piece being written.

    • Re:

      I think that most of our information has to pass through a couple of filters. One is that it has to be wrapped up as effective click bait. Second is that there needs to be someone with resources with an interest in promoting a particular narrative. The number of electric cars on the road is growing. So is the number of ICE cars. Depending on how you dress those facts up they could serve a particular narrative that had some interest. But by themselves they are boring.
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    • Re:

      My wife used to work for a statistical consulting firm that specialized in corporate large scale discrimination (like, someone suing Walmart because only.5% of their workers are natural redheads or some crap like that). They would often work BOTH SIDES of a case. They've have one office in TX working for the defense, while the other in CA was working for the plaintiffs. They all used the same data, but with completely different conclusions.

  • Re:

    I also like the articles with misleading headlines.

    For example, cybertruck gets into an accident - hit head on by a teenage driver in a corolla.

    Headline - "Concerns raised about cybertruck safety after accident"

    Actually in the article: All the occupants of the vehicles walked away from it, Corolla totaled, status of cybertruck unknown as it's a production evaluation sample (so prototype, probably basically handbuilt to begin with). Generic concerns about "heavy" vehicles is all they had against the cybert

  • Plato's cave

    (Disclosure: I own Tesla stock.)

    Tesla is currently shipping 1.8 million vehicles a year. They are projecting a doubling time of 2 years, and are planning on opening up a new factory in Mexico and are in negotiations for one in India.

    (I think the reality is closer to 1.8 times production over 2 years, but Covid might be the reason for the slowdown.)

    The problem is that everyone online has an agenda.

    Big hedge fund managers are sell side analysts, which means that at the time they say something they want to sel

    • Re:

      EV battery fires are still news because of their rarity, if it were common then it would stop being news. Also, battery fires are notorious for being difficult to extinguish. Batteries have the "fuel" and "oxygen" (in scare quotes because that's not precisely true but close enough for the point to be made) in close proximity. This is much like a fire from a rocket failure, or a fire at an explosives/ammunition plant, with the fuel and oxygen in such proximity the typical firefighting practices do not wor

      • Re:

        Interestingly though, battery fires are common only for a certain type of batteries: the lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt battery. Lead-batteries don't burn, and neither do for instance lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. The LiNMC battery is the type you have in your mobile phone or laptop, because they allow for the most compact cells (not necessarily the lightest though). Many Chinese made EVs including Teslas built in China use LiFeP cells. Because of the foamy nature of the iron phosphate, LiFeP cells are

      • Re:

        Newer batter technologies (LFP, SS, etc.) are replacing the flammable electrolyte and I suspect that in the very near future most of these occurrences will simply fade away.

        Be interesting to see what Hollywood does though, given there that a typical ICE tends to explode the second it's shot with a bullet or simply rolls over.

  • Re:

    This is a fascinating problem with some not so obvious causes. When you have OEM and dealers intentionally pricing out repairs [globalnews.ca] of EVs, this has a very negative effect on the resale value. At the same time, you have car manufacturers a) selling EVs at a loss to meet mandates b) selling EVs to people that get government price subsidies you all but expect that to happen.
    
    As a car enthusiast, I have seen similar patterns in ultra-Luxury segment. You have ultra wealthy that can afford anything, then you have a s

    • Re:

      Fashionability is a big part of the enthusiast car market for sure. A 15 year old Porsche 911 will still sell for half of it's original price, or more. A 15 year old BMW M5 with a V10 is worth more like 10-15% of it's new, similar cost. Both are high performing cars. Both are very expensive to service if they break. I know people who own both but they are indeed very different worlds.

  • Re:

    Here are the key pieces of data:

    1. 7% of new vehicles sold in 2023 in the US were EVs. That's not huge, but is significant.

    2. EV sales in the US grew 50% from 2022 to 2023. That's huge.

    • Re:

      Actually if all you know is that sales went up 50% you really don't know much. Could have gone up from 2 cars to 3.

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      • Re:

        You apparently read only fact #2 and missed fact #1, even though you quoted it.

    • Here is a third key piece of data:

      The total number of ICE vehicles registered grew faster than the number of registered EV's. In the race to eliminate emissions from transportation we are still falling behind.

      • Re:

        At 50% YoY growth of EVs, not for long. We're in the exponential growth phase of the sigmoid function.

    • Re:

      We're starting up the S-curve past the early adoption stage. I think people are going to be shocked at how fast this transition is going to happen from here on out...

  • Re:

    It's worth mentioning that a lot of the cars being sold are hybrids, and you can change the numbers around a LOT depending on whether you include them in the calculations or not.

  • Re:

    293 million vehicles on the road in the US. From the post, 4 million are BEVs, or 1.37% of all vehicles. It's growth within its market, but they haven't made very much of an impact overall. As you stated, in can be spun either way.

    I personally know 2 people who own or have owed BEVs. One has it because his soon to be ex wife insisted on getting it, but she hated it so much she's driving the gasoline car at her new digs. He's planning on selling it after the divorce is final. For complicated reasons it's ben

• So the EV market is following "hockey stick" growth and Tesla is making its numbers. Like it almost always has. I'm not sure what the big news is here.

  But it is one more data point supporting what I have been writing for several years now: Had Elon Musk and Tesla not ignored all critics and implemented with the courage of their convictions back in 201x, we would still be in 2024 be getting position statements from every major auto maker to the effect:

  Battery electric vehicles are very interesting but simply not economically viable at the present level of technology.

  And, probably: "we are looking into hydrogen."

  And never mind pointing out little eddies like the Nissan Leaf. That was a niche product that benefited greatly from Tesla making the market for them.

  • +6, Insightful

    You nailed it, bravo.
    
    Lots of Important People and Industry Experts told us with great confidence that Elon was a crazy con artist and Tesla would never succeed. I hope those assholes shorted TSLA too.

    • Re:

      Elon Musk is a crazy idiot. In certain situations, if you combine that with nearly endless money, it's a huge asset. Tesla and SpaceX work because he's really bad at understanding risk assessment and is willing to take on a lot more risk than most business people are. He's got the resources and attitude where he can invest billions of dollars into an experiment and not care if it blows up and kills people. It's morbid to think about, but it opens up paths to success that most people wouldn't even consider.

      • Re:

        It's commonly known that Elon has been nearly broke more than once, so what on Earth do you mean about "unlimited money"?
        
        What thing "blew up and killed people"? You seem to be referring to SpaceX, which has killed zero people. Gwynne Shotwell and a team of aerospace veterans along with NASA's ultra risk-averse bureaucracy are a bunch of cowboys too? Come on, be serious... or do you work for Boeing or ULA, who nearly launched a manned spacecraft with PEOPLE ON IT that was an unfixable fire hazard?
        
        You'

        • Re:

          He's worth about $240 billion dollars. For most purposes, that's essentially unlimited money.

          I was referring to his tendency to go ahead with SpaceX launches after the FAA told him not to due to the risk it posed to nearby homes.

          His orders to skip brake testing on Teslas because too many were failing the test was also on my mind. And really, how he handles Tesla development in general.

          • Re:

            You claim SpaceX went ahead with multiple launches after the FAA denied them a launch permit?
            
            Oh, you're going to have to back that one up. This should be good.
            
            And this claim about testing the brakes... look, if this is the best you can do then I suggest giving up because you're making the somewhat more legitimate Elonophobes look stupid by association. Tesla's standards were in fact higher than the industry's. If you had any common sense you'd realize that the government would have taken a giant shi

  • Re:

    These statements were not wrong. When Tesla released its first car in 2008, the average new car price adjusted for inflation was something like $35K. Many thing changed to make today EVs more competitive, not the least is in 2023 the average new car price was $47K. Yet EVs are still not economically viable due to being too expensive, they have to be mandated and heavily subsidized AND they are still largely occupy luxury segment of the market.

    • Re:

      Tesla's 3 and Y are some of the best selling cars on the planet and have dramatically reduced in price over the past year. We just hit the semi-magic $100/kWh price point and battery prices continue to fall.

      BYD sells cars for a profit. Volvo's EX30 has started shipping, and will hit at $34K here in the US.

      2024 is probably the tipping point.

    • Re:

      If the statements were not wrong, Tesla would have gone out of business. MANY people predicted that MANY times, and that group is WELL REPRESENTED here on/. The fact that Tesla survived is proof that the statement is wrong.

      And it was a paraphrase anyway. They would have come up with all kinds of reasons BEVs were not viable, when the truth was that they did not want to invest in it and they certainly did not want to undermine their existing product lines. Major auto companies do not do those thing

      • Re:

        Tesla's success, the general success in the EU, and the overwhelmingly abysmal sales of traditional ICE vehicles in China.

        Many are waking up to the unpleasant realization that they're going to have to learn how to build the silly things, or be forced out of the market.

  • Re:

    Probably the biggest news lately is that Tesla is no longer the number one EV maker, relegated to 2nd in the last quarter.

    • Re:

      Would you buy a car made by BYD?

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      • Re:

        Is this more signaling, like we did in the '80s regarding buying a Japanese car over something made by Ford or GM?

        But yes, if traditional automakers won't make anything other than overpriced, oversized pickup trucks then I'll be more than happy to consider an affordable substitute.

      • Re:

        Yeah I probably would, 5 star ancap ratings, all mod cons and reasonable price.

    • • Re:

        "Chinese company BYD, for the first time, sold more EVs. Excluding the company’s range of plug-in hybrid vehicles and commercial vehicles such as buses, BYD says it sold 526,409 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2023." a solid 10% above Tesla's EV sales, they explicitly excluded the non EV specific cars.

      • Re:

        sounds like you have been surfing some conspiracy sites or perhaps the Tesla fanboy sites. The announcement was very precise in specifying that non EV's and even hybrids and non cars were excluded in the number.

  • I think musk lying about range statistics

    And getting away with it while getting paid large subsidies for making what are commonly referred to as compliance cars has more to do with it.
    
    It's relatively recent that those subsidies dried up and there's still pretty massive subsidies in the form of a 7500 tax credit being paid out. Remember Tesla's are luxury cars there's no particularly good reason why they should get a tax credit. If you're buying a $60,000 card I see no reason why my taxpayer dollars should go to subsidizing your automobile purc

    • Re:

      So much that is illogical, mis-informed and outright absurd in the above post it is hard to know where to begin. In fact I think I will leave it to others if they are so inclined (which I doubt.).

  • Re:

    The Leaf outsold all Tesla cars until 2019. It was hardly a niche. What's more, Nissan and Renault built the first charging networks in Europe, and proved that long distance travel was possible without a 500 mile range battery.

• We are charging up electric vehicles from fossil fuels. https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]

  We will continue to charge EVs from fossil fuels until we build more nuclear power plants. Most EVs are getting charged at night, that is a fact often brought up to show that we can charge up EVs without added electrical infrastructure since it is at night that electricity demand is currently lowest. How are we producing our electricity at night? Not with solar power, it is a lack of solar power that defines night time.

  Will we be charging up EVs with wind power? Maybe, but to make that happen requires added infrastructure to connect the parts of the nation where the wind is blowing to where the EVs are being charged, and in doing so this negates the claim that the current electrical grid can meet our EV charging needs.

  What of hydroelectric power? Wind and hydro make up the bulk of the renewable energy produced in the USA, and this is because wind and hydro are relatively low-tech which makes them low cost. We could possibly increase our hydroelectric production some but not likely enough to charge up every EV when the sun isn't shining and the wind not blowing.

  Batteries? Are we going to charge up EV batteries from batteries stacked at some electrical switching station? I have to wonder if those advocating for this recognize how much material would have to be mined to produce these batteries. If they believe that mining for coal and uranium is bad then what of mining for copper, aluminum, cobalt, cadmium, or whatever is in these batteries? You believe mining for the materials to make batteries have no impact on the environment? We'd likely be able to produce enough uranium to charge up all of our EVs from just the tails of the rare earth metals we'd need for the motors and such in the EVs. Rare earth metals aren't exactly rare, they have that name for the difficulty in producing them. Part of what makes rare earth metals difficult to refine is the uranium and thorium in the ore. We are going to have to separate out the uranium and thorium anyway so we may as well use that material for fuel in nuclear fission power plants. That would save a lot on the damage we'd do to the environment.

  I'll believe the Department of Energy and the White House are taking CO2 emissions, and the global warming that comes with it, seriously when they strip away the hurdles to new nuclear power plant construction. Until we get more nuclear power plants built we will be charging EVs with fossil fuels. Argue all you like about how this is saving CO2 emissions because large power plants are more efficient than the small internal combustion engines in cars and trucks but we aren't getting anywhere close to zero CO2 emissions without nuclear power.

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  • We are charging EVs from the grid. As the grid decarbonizes, which it is, so will EV charging. Currently the big growth is solar and wind. Not nuclear. Solar and wind is cheaper and quicker to build. It may be that some nuclear, with it's highly predictable output, would have benefits for balancing grids. It is not clear to me anyway that it is essential.

    Our current materials supplies will not allow us to build enough batteries. And so, we are looking for more supplies. And, looking for replacements for all the rarer materials that are expensive, and impacted by conflict -- sodium, iron and so forth. I don't think we will be balancing the grid with (new) lithium ion in tens years time.

    • Re:

      Of course, nobody is claiming otherwise. One big problem with this is that there is no assurance that CO2 emissions from electricity production will go down with time. Keep closing nuclear power plants and not build new ones to replace them will mean that CO2 emissions from electricity generation are likely to increase.

      No, the big growth is in wind, specifically onshore wind. Growth in solar power is not that great, especially when considering how much the industry is getting in subsidies.

      That's my point

      • Re:

        Here's the thing about that... gas powered cars are about 30% fuel efficient. Most of the energy released by burning the fuel is given off as heat. Burning the gas at an electric plant and charging a car with it is about 90% efficient. Even if we don't improve things from where they're at now, we can get a huge emissions win by moving to electric cars.

      • Re:

        "Our current materials supplies will not allow us to build enough batteries. And so, we are looking for more supplies. And, looking for replacements for all the rarer materials that are expensive, and impacted by conflict -- sodium, iron and so forth. I don't think we will be balancing the grid with (new) lithium ion in tens years time."

        Sigh. From what I've read it appears that the current deposits found in the Salton Sea area ALONE could provide enough lithium for 375 million EVs.

        I'm a fan of nuclear, actu

      • Re:

        I hate to point out the obvious but centrally generated electricity is a regulated industry. There is no market force as you seem to understand it. Utilities are guaranteed a return on their investment regardless of operating costs. That doesn't mean there aren't economic forces at work, just that how they apply is not obvious. Cheaper is not always a winner any more than lower emissions are.

    • Re:

      When it comes to this stuff, nothing is ever truly "essential", I'd argue. It's just a question of how cheap and practical it is. How many workarounds you have to do.

      As such, well, I believe that the constant predictable output of nuclear does indeed have a valuable place in the non-carbon future.

      But if we keep installing solar like we have, eventually the cheap power at night paradigm will flip, with power being cheaper during the day. At which point, charging EVs at work(or during the day on the weeken

    • Re:

      Yeah but I'm not entirely convinced that EVS are going to be all that great for the environment. For one thing you need a pretty extensive study that still has enough points to be debated to matter to prove that they are better. We are a long way from the grid being decarbonized throughout the entire supply chain after all...
      
      I would still much rather see more public transportation and more walkable cities. Also imagine how much less we would have to work if we want spending all this money on personal au

      • Re:

        There are quite a few studies that show EVs as better for the environment. We may not have nailed down every factor, but the flip side is that almost any other external factor you might want to add to the equation is probably offset by the same factor applied to building and continually fueling ICE vehicles. All of the exploration, drilling, mining, pumping, shipping, refining and distribution of oil and gasoline has massive externalities involved. Who produced the steel for the rigs and pipes? Who produced

    • Re:

      MacMan is a shill for the nuclear industry. Every post is about how we absolutely must build more nuclear, and nothing else will work.

      They ignore the all the inconvenient facts.

      In other words, you can't take anything they say seriously.

  • Re:

    Mod parent up. All this poster is saying is that there is no free CO2 lunch, we need nuclear. Not exactly a new thought, but it sure as heck-fire isn't a troll comment, either.

    • Re:

      Wonder if someone has done a debt analysis on the amount of CO2 created building a nuclear power plant. All of that steel and concrete doesn't just drop out of the sky, not to mention running a construction site and equipment for a decade or more.

      Then there's uranium mining, enrichment, storage, reprocessing...

  • We are charging up electric vehicles from fossil fuels

    This point is not as meaningful as you seem to think it is. Yes, some of the electricity used by EVs comes from "dirty" sources, such as coal and gas. However, even when using dirty energy, an electric vehicle is still more efficient [robbreport.com] than an equivalent ICE. And let's not forget that refining crude oil is in itself an expensive and polluting process: it uses about half of all feedstock energy [energy.gov] used by all manufacturing in the USA.

    Another factor is that the grid is becoming cleaner and cleaner as new renewable sources become available and technology improves. This is not happening with ICEs - I don't see real progress on renewable fuels, like green hydrogen or maybe biofuel. Even the nuclear plants you seem to love so much would benefit EVs, but not ICEs.

    • Re:

      If you read the link you will find numerous problems with this analysis. To start with the percentage of power currently generated is irrelevant. The question is where is the additional power going to come from. In immediate terms in most places that is fossil fuels, usually coal. And the shift to electric transportation will delay the time when the grid can produce enough power without those legacy coal plants or the newly built natural gas plants currently planned to meet future demand.

  • Re:

    Then don't use fossil fuels. There are plenty of alternatives now to supplement a reasonable 20% nuclear. Heck, Norway does it without any fossil fuels, although it does export a lot. It will be interesting to see how Norway, Scotland, etc develop as EVs increase in use as they have low levels of fossil fuels. Transport would be about 10% of total power requirements so that element wouldn't seem to be insurmountable.

    • Re:

      Norway gets 95% of its electricity from hydro. Its a lot like the Pacific Northwest, lots of mountains and rivers can produce lots of very cheap electricity. Anyone who has an electric vehicle understand the economics of running on electricity vs fossil fuel even here. Norway has that situation on a national scale.

  • Re:

    I’m generally with you regarding nuclear. We should be adding it way faster than we are. I’d much rather live right next to a nuclear plant than downwind of an old coal power plant. Unfortunately, the world rushed TOO FAST into nuclear power technology last century and there were some pretty spectacular failures as result. We’re still decades away from widespread implementing of next-gen fission, and fusion is who-knows-when.

    
    
    You crap on wind and solar too much in order to boost your st

    • Re:

      I made no such claim.

      I advocate for a mix of energy that is low in cost and low in CO2 emissions. That means we need nuclear fission. It also means we need onshore wind, hydro, and geothermal. Solar power is not on that list because of the high cost, on the balance we'd likely do better with natural gas than trying to shoehorn solar power onto the grid. Solar power peaks in output at noon, just in time for a lunchtime lull in electrical demand. When electricity demand is highest solar power output is f

  • Re:

    Apparently, even if everyone charges their EVs with electricity generated from 100% coal, it still emits less CO2. EVs are just more efficient. Imagine what the CO2 savings are when the larger percentages of the electricity is generated from renewables?!

    • Re:

      Nuclear power produces less CO2 per unit of energy than even wind and solar. Imagine the gains we'd make with more nuclear power on the electric grid.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      I can imagine the reductions in CO2 emissions from using renewable energy just fine. We'd do even better with nuclear fission. Because there are places where onshore wind, hydro, and geothermal are too cheap to ignore then we should use those when and where we can in spite of the higher CO2 emissions. We need some competiti

    • Re:

      In  90% of places  the majority of energy cannot be supplied by wind/water. What then? Only rich folks and   scabish agendista Stalinists drive cars? Many want that to punish white yeomanry  for being creative and aggressive.  For everyman;  nucs for sure. Otherwise burn baby burn.

  • Re:

    this negates the claim that the current electrical grid can meet our [future] EV charging needs.

    Who is making that claim?

  • Re:

    We already have a huge source of nuclear fusion power - its called the sun. Solar panels to collect that power are cheaper, lower tech and far more certain of success than building artificial nuclear reactors. They just don't have the profit potential for the current grid operators.

    The larger problem is that we are investing in subsidies to get people to switch to electricity when we can't even meet the current demand without burning coal and natural gas. Worse, we are encouraging people to increase their

  • Re:

    Your own link shows that 40% of electricity production is renewable and nuclear. So, maybe your point isn't as valid as you think.

    Also, 40% seem to be natural gas, isn't burning natural gas much better than petroleum?

    Also, aren't efficiencies in energy production higher for a plant than for small mobile engines? Also, isn't it easier to filter/recapture emissions at a plant than in each individual car?

• • Re:

    You use a donorcycle as your main form of transportation? Allow me to ask - are you an organ donor? If so allow me to personally thank you for offering up your literal life in order to travel slightly more cheaply and for offering up your young, healthy organs to others when you get killed.

    
    
    Just in case I wasn’t clear, I think motorcycles are the second worse transportation method on the planet, since rocket-car takes the first spot. The number of people I know that are permanently jacked up or in

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    • • Re: What?

        Riding a motorcycle with cars is like being a goat in a pen with a bunch or water buffaloes. Sir, I salute yourmassive set of cohones, but I prefer to be in the same weight class as my opponents and the 4-12 inches of armor and padding are nice as well. Best wishes for continued success in what you do.
• There was a time when some of the EV chargers were free, but they were scattered randomly about. If I hear the word public though I think of things that are run by some level of government, and I presume that isn't the case here either? Is a public EV charger "public" in the same way I could call my local gas station "public"? Is a public EV charger just one that isn't in someone's house or restricted in some way to an exclusive set of users (beyond of course the Tesla-only chargers)?
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  • Free EV charging still exists

    I charged for free at a Volta [voltacharging.com] charger today while I was shopping at Pearland Town Center mall. While the 48 amps @ 206 V isn't high-speed, I still returned home with more range (87%) than when I left (80%) for the mall.

    I posted some photos of those units in this tweet chain [twitter.com] a couple years ago.

  • Re:

    I've done some work with EV charging station databases, and in short it's complicated. First you have either "networked" or "non-networked" chargers, the latter are not connected to the internet and typically used by property owners themselves (or perhaps they'll let you use them for free or with a purchase, for example if you are a guest at a hotel). Typically with networked chargers these days, you have to pay somehow, often by having an app/subscription for that particular network. Then there's protocol,

  • Re:

    In much of Europe, charging was free initially. By the time they added payment, it was need because a chargers were getting busy with people who just wanted some free energy and didn't really need to change up to get to their destination.

    Public charging refers to chargers that are available for public use, i.e. not a private residential charger or one for the use of company vehicles. They are privately owned and operated, like petrol stations.

• Haha ! Four-million wheezing whiny  over-priced targets for my coal-burning Dodge HellKat. VROOOOOM !!  EVs meant for marmalade and Earl Grey. Hope those shiny  recycled plastic fenders  like belching black particulate. HAha. VROOOOM !! 
• I have to take the sales numbers with a grain of salt. We know that some major EV component suppliers are 50% down on their sales figures. I would not be surprised if the government is lying.