An honest eval from an EV owner 1 year in

If this is considered too political please delete or move it. I found it informative enough to share
Written by Bryan O'connor:

Exactly one year after purchasing the electric Mustang Mach-E, I'd like to share my thoughts, pros and cons of driving an all electric car.
Pros:
1. Driving is like nothing I've experienced! The acceleration and power is so smooth and luxurious. What a ride!
2. Don't have to buy gas.
3. Low maintenance!!! No oil changes! Fewer moving parts equals less parts breaking down.
4. City driving is amazing! The car battery excels in slow, stop and go conditions.
Cons:
1. Winter driving is very stressful. The battery drains very quickly in the cold. Heating your cabin in extremely cold temperatures is sometimes impossible! At minus 35 degrees Celsius, your windshield will freeze over as NO HEAT will be provided! That's right...only cold air in very cold climate!
3. Charging your car takes much longer in the winter. Traveling to Ottawa once, it took 90 minutes to charge my car from 20% to 80% at a level 3 Charging spot.
4. The anger and frustration when you pull up to a fast charger off the highway and it is "out of order" is out of this world! It happens too often!
5. Everywhere you travel to, extensive careful planning is needed because fast chargers (level 3) are not easy to find in working order.
6. Highway driving drains your battery very fast at speeds greater than 100kms per hour.
In Summary:
1. My Mustang Mach-E is not a practical car for my job. I put 30,000kms in one year. If we have a colder Winter next year I'll be miserable!
2. The infrastructure is a joke for non- tesla cars. I cannot imagine doubling the electric cars on the road with the current available fast chargers. The wait lines and times to charge will increase arrival times on long trips by many hours!
3. Electric cars are not very efficient on the highway if you like to drive fast.
In my opinion, a plug-in Hybrid (PHEV) car would be ideal. PHEV cars can drive electric in the city, saving you on gas. Then choose gas to drive efficiently on the highway. Win-win!
I sold my Mustang Mach-E and I am on a waiting list to buy a PHEV. It was a fun ride while it lasted but very impractical for my line of work. Our cold Quebec winters and the very poor infrastructure adds to my obvious decision.
Our governments want to put a holt on the production of internal combustion engines by 2035. Good luck with that! The current infrastructure is a joke. I do not have any faith it can be improved to meet the future demand.

Well......imagine that?


Who'd a thunck it?

...

minus 35F and annual milage in km... methinks this is a Canadian experience.

- Art

You are not going to get much heat out of an IC vehicle heater at minus 35C either, you can try the cardboard trick, but good luck getting a piece in there with today's cars.

it is Two things batteries typically don't like is extreme heat or cold

Yes, within a stones thrown from Detroit where the car was designed. They can't tell us they ran into the same issues during testing in the winter, or anytime.

Can the average US home support (charging) more than one EV daily?

My friend in CA sent me his alert from last summer informing residents to either (1) charge your EV or (2) use your AC, but don't do both at the same time.
Probably charging 2 EV's at the same time would also be a bad idea.

And I agree with the article. Here in Vegas the heat of the summer is not ideal for EV's. And running the AC drains the battery fast, like driving at highway speed. And I got a quote last week from Nissan to replace the measly 24KW battery in my Nissan Leaf for a bit over $16,000. And it takes 2 to 3 months to get a battery.

Most homes can not.

20+% of EV owners go back to gas powered for their next car.

www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ev-owners-switch-gas-power-study

www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fle...5-of-ev-drivers-regularly-use-an-ice-car

www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2023/...with-service-experience/?sh=26525bdd65bc

www.autonews.com/mobility-report/emerging-gap-between-ev-range-estimates-and-reality

For most people, EVs today SUCK! And the further north you live, the worse they SUCK.

Maybe someday they will be the thing to have and for a select few, that day may be today. But for most of us today, they just SUCK. But the libtards are determined to spend billions and billions of dollars to force them down our throats.

And what happened to the #2 con in the list?

-35C = -31F !!! . . . 30,000km = 18,000miles . . . .

i have no issue with driving a ev around town but not for a long trip

Until solid state batteries with 1000 mile ranges and 10 min re-charge times becomes a thing the guy that made the list is right, PHEV is the way to go. Electric in the city (most have 40-50 mile range) but gas for the highway. Any place trying to ban gas engines by 2035 is very stupid and that rule will be scrapped (unless solid states are in full production by then).

I wish I had ordered 2 (Tesla limit per family) Teslas when my niece ordered hers.

I wish when the Teslas for me arrived I would have immediately taken delivery, then resold them within days for $17,000 profit each or a total of $34,000.

But then,
I wish each time I read
“Ten biggest upward mover stocks yesterday” in the newspaper
that I had bought those stocks on margin 3 days agp.

My niece wishes she had known how hard it would be to drive a Tesla in heavy traffic
with 3 young children in car seats in the back,
when one child is sick and has an blood oxygen alarm going off.

But her 6 year old now has almost EMT like skills.

My ford dealer we get parts from has a transconnect EV for parts deliveries. Guy who drives it has dropped parts here at the shop a few times. Every time he comes in he stays to warm up this winter. Said he can not take the interstate and barely stays warm delivering parts. in town driving I am sure its ok but sending him outside of town when the air temps are zero or below is crazy. I am sure it is Ford telling the dealer they need to use it to show off but what is it showing when he is telling stories of being worried if he will make it back and having to drive 40 in a 65 just to conserve battery.

DInosaurs for the win

The EV mandate comes from folks who don't live in the real world: Government-employed academics and ivory-tower idealists, who lack common sense, but are likely to be invested in the industries they force on the People.
EVs are fine for short trips in moderate-climate cities that have the infrastructure to support them, and that's pretty much it.

Well (currently) with nearly 60% of the average US households having two (2) vehicles per household and another 20% having three (3) vehicles per household, I'm not that good at math but how in the future is this going to work out????

I tell people all the time to watch for the electrical limitations at the household level. The grid is talked about all the time, but the party doesn’t stop getting it into your neighborhood.

I’m thinking about setting up a charging station at my house with a 440 to run the thing.

My grandfather who was born in 1900 and began work at age 13 installing red hot rivets in the steam boilers of an electric power plant to power a coal mine, said that it was a huge mistake not installing 3 phase electric power to houses.

My father took this a step further and said it was a huge mistake not to have adopted 400 Hertz AC instead of 60 Hz ( or 50 Hz).
He began work at 13 as a telephone repairman inside coal mines.

In airplanes where weight and power is crucial 3 phase 400 Hz is often used.

Tesla wants to sell you a “PowerWall” to store power from your intermittent solar cells and windmills to fast charge your 2 EV autos, EV motorcycle, EV ATV, EV farm tractor and battery boosted bicycle.

It is probably a mistake to not also consider mechanical flywheels or compressed air tanks.

My mechanical engineering senior class’s assigned “capstone” project was to split into 5 person teams and design flywheel powered vehicles to transfer suitcases from passenger terminals to and from airliners.

My niece’s bio-engineering senior class’s assigned capstone project was to design compressed air powered urban automobiles.

In mining the sequence of technology was -
harder stones to break softer stones - fire followed by water quenching to crack hard stones, metal picks to crack rocks - wooden railroad tracks so that women and children could haul heavy ore wagons - black powder blasting of hand drilled holes - steam powered water pumps to prevent deeper mines from flooding - explosion protected lanterns - steam engines to drive pumps, drills, fans and hoists, - steam engines to drive air compressors - compressed air hole drills- detonating high explosives - local steam engines to power local electric generators - electric generators to charge batteries for lights and telephones - electric motor hole drills and pick wheels - diesel engines to power mine railroad locomotives - grid electricity to power electric motors - computers to start and stop complex sequences of motors - robots to drive diesel or electric ore trucks - robots to core drill and sample rocks on Mars - robots to mine asteroids, moons and planets......

360view wrote: " My mechanical engineering senior class’s assigned “capstone” project was to split into 5 person teams and design flywheel powered vehicles to transfer suitcases from passenger terminals to and from airliners."

I had a similar Mechanical Engineering senior project when I went to college. Does the name 'Oerlikon Gyrobus' ring a bell? Those were flywheel-powered city buses that came out in Switzerland around 1951. They were used many years in Europe and later in South America. I never understood why the technology never caught on.

Regardless of what you think of EV's the first problem is someone needs to make one that has LOOKS! Ugly 4 door car/suv is not even in the ball park. They need to make a EV that has looks first and foremost before someone would even think about buying one. Instead they compete in who can make the ugliest one! Sorry I'm not driving a turd even though it costs me pennies to drive. Turd and a EV painted brown have a lot of similarity's.

Check out this link

Not sure if true but heard you cannot oil spray an EV (obvious reasons). But isn't that convenient. It'll be rotting out just in time for the battery to die and the entire hulk be worthless

Never had problem getting heat when it's -35 out, it doesn't take much longer to start blowing warm just takes a bit longer to actually warm up the inside of the car.

My nephew had a Tesla ( I don't know the model , the cheaper one ) He liked it ran it for about a year and sold it at a nice profit and went back to a gas powered vehicle. I can see the appeal of an EV as a second car there are a lot of Teslas around here in North Jersey , If someone made an EV that was reasonably priced under $20,000 I would consider one just to try it and see . I agree about the charging every time I pass a rest area on the N.J. turnpike or a WAWA ( convenience store / gas station ) all of the charging stations are in use.

I've been driving an EV for 6 years now and they are fantastic as long as you stay well within range. If you have to go outside of range then the EV experience gets sucky really quick. Extreme temps reduce the range and so does driving fast or rapid acceleration.

My wife drives 2 miles/day. Should be the ideal setup for an EV...right? But....my kids live a couple hundred miles away...so that makes the EV less desirable. Of course we could take my 15 mpg truck to see my kids but that defeats the purpose of the EV...right? I could buy a 3rd car with an ICE but that also defeats the purpose of the EV. The little fuel the wife burns in her commute is nothing but yet that's where the EV shines. So what's the purpose of the EV again?????

the purpose of an EV?
An EV has to very important purposes.
1) EVs are designed to transfer funds. From your hand to the government as taxes and the EV manufacturer to purchase the product. From the Federal Government to the EV companies as tax incentives and environment credits. From the EV manufacturers to the government in the form of donations for government funded programs and campaign funding.

2) To allow the government more control over your life by limiting the number of miles you can travel, the conditions you travel in, and the frequency in which you can travel in the form of battery charge limitations and charging time. Then once you have your personal transportation limited the an EV and its travel limitations, you give the government the ability to limit the amount of electricity you can use the charge your EV through the power grid limitation and the control of how much electric you can use during a given time..Not only have you given the government control over how far you can travel, but also how frequently you can travel, and when you can travel, you have also given the government the chance to monitor where you travel, and how long you stay there.

Fact.^^^^

Above is all true.

The Amish are closer to correct than EV.....BUT they still need the "English" to use their ICE vehicles to get them to see relatives, get to job sites, etc.

They for sure have a place, my wife could drive one no problem. 3-4 mile commute and around 10K miles per year. When we go on a road trip we seldom go more than a few hours away. We could easily do one of our quick family road trips in the range of a Tesla, worst case 1 charge out on the road.

I occasionally shop the Model Ys. But when looking in that price range I am easily distracted by used SRT Grand Cherokees.

Gyrobus rings a bell!

Flywheels are very interesting.

Buckytube composite super high strength spokes
and super dense super strong depleted Uranium flywheel rims
would be a new “twist” on an old invention.

Last time I thought about flywheel science on moparts
was when discussing how to measure the power losses to friction
inside transmission, driveshaft, u -joints, differentials and axles.
for not much money.

I originally thought this required expensive special equipment,
but some engineers showed how to do this on the cheap:

Wheels with tires are “flywheels”.
Wheels filled with water instead of air are flywheels that store more energy at the same RPM.

jack the rear of a vehicle up so the rear wheels are off the pavement.

Run the “up in the air” drivetrain up to some speedometer reading like 50 MPH.
Time how long it takes to coast “in neutral” to a lower speedometer reading like 10 MPH.

Do this at other speedometer readings like 70 MPH coasting down 5 MPH.

Repeat with wheels filled with water.

This creates multiple equations,
multiple coast down times,
and can be mathematically solved to find
multiple “unknown friction percentages” for transmission losses, differential losses, etc.

One last “tricky” step.

You need to know the “Rotational Inertia constant” of these tire flywheels,
commonly called Ir.

Ir for an air filled tire will be a lesser amount than a water filled tire.

You can measure this Ir in a simple cheap tricky way
by rigidly attaching a long, but very thin diameter threaded steel rod to the center of a wheel using two nuts,
then rigidly attaching the other end of the threaded steel rod with two more tightened nuts to something high up
like a
garage ceiling,
basketball goal post, etc.

A small threaded rod 1/8 inch to 1/2 inch diameter
and 60 to 72 inches long
is typical.

The thin rod is scientifically a
“torsion bar spring”
just like Mother Mopar was fond of.

Have a stop watch ready to time.
Get the right size Torque wrench.

Use a torque wrench on a bolt to twist the wheel 90 degrees,
write down the torque,
then let go by quickly pulling the torque wrench off while starting the stop watch.

The wheel will now do the “wiggle twist” dance
rotating back slightly less than 180 degrees,
come to a stop,
begin a swing back less degrees than before to the other side,
come to a stop,
reverse direction, and so on.....

Stopwatch time 6 to 12 of these oscillations.

There is a physics formula to calculate the Ir of the wheel
from the torque first applied and the time to do one oscillation.

Old fashioned wind up wrist watches had an oscillating flywheel like this inside.

Now repeat with a water filled wheel.

Repeat with a wheel filled with calcium chloride saturated water, etc.

Or just repeat with heavier wheels or bigger heavier tires.

This is why to me hybrids should be what is pushed. At least for them you don't have the distance worry so they would be more practical for most people to get into.

I agree and the weirdest thing so far is that Buick nailed a design…and released it saying they won’t build it. Would’ve been a GREAT halo car with ICE or EV. But no, ball drop from gm, about usual.

It is worth noting that the US Federal Gov is not presently giving huge tax subsidies to
Flywheel vehicles
Compressed air vehicles.

That technology actually has another advantage:
an “electro-magnetic pulse” or EMP does not stop mechanical parts from working.

It seems like the EV craze is here to stay, the pendulum has swung in that direction. EVs make sense in the city, where most people commute 30-40 miles and park all day. When the electrical infrastructure is enhanced to support the charging of all these cars, the pollution in urban areas will be decreased significantly. It makes sense to have a generating station with emissions filters and scrubbers instead of having tiny ones on every vehicle. That being said, the technology is evolving so fast that it's risky to get into the market and get a lemon. It also doesn't make sense to outlaw gas/diesel vehicles - what about us rural dwellers that need to drive long distances and tow? I feel like rational discussion and reasonable regulation could create a situation where a pollution is reduced in populated areas and combustion engine vehicles aren't outlawed completely. I'm probably dreaming....:0

I also am impressed by the performance aspects of some of the EVs. That weird looking rivian truck is as fast as a BMW M5 or a hellcat. Crazy!

All good points Nutso. That said, I'd still love to see all sorts of lawsuits against the gov, specifically the exec branch, for believing they can "Mandate" anything in this country. That would be the job of the Legislative side and trying to use the 1970 Clean Air act powers is a real reach. The Government has No business picking "Winners and Losers". This should have happened some time ago. I'm sure the Rivians excel is great, but how long could you drive it like that also. Saw my first one about 2 weeks ago. Looks just like that Honda half truck. Useful for garbage runs out here in the country but that is about it. As others have stated, EVs may well be the future, but not these EVs. An EV with at least 500 mile range and a battery about the size of a briefcase. You look at Computers, it is doable, but realistically, probably 25-40 years out. 7 states have decided to follow CA and ban new ICE vehicle sales by 2035. That is simply not realistic and perhaps a step way too far. Already, while moving certain goods, I am told that we have trucks that drive to the CA border for DoD and then sit and wait for a CA legal Semi to come to the border to pick up the load. That is insane, effects not only national defense, but also trips the federal gov because it now also effects commerce.

the purpose of an EV?
An EV has to very important purposes.
1) EVs are designed to transfer funds. From your hand to the government as taxes and the EV manufacturer to purchase the product. From the Federal Government to the EV companies as tax incentives and environment credits. From the EV manufacturers to the government in the form of donations for government funded programs and campaign funding.

2) To allow the government more control over your life by limiting the number of miles you can travel, the conditions you travel in, and the frequency in which you can travel in the form of battery charge limitations and charging time. Then once you have your personal transportation limited the an EV and its travel limitations, you give the government the ability to limit the amount of electricity you can use the charge your EV through the power grid limitation and the control of how much electric you can use during a given time..Not only have you given the government control over how far you can travel, but also how frequently you can travel, and when you can travel, you have also given the government the chance to monitor where you travel, and how long you stay there.


..........These are the real reasons, he gets it.

I feel like there is a parallel to the early 70s here...I was not born yet, but my understanding is that the government mandated emissions/mpg and safety regulations that were not possible to meet with the technology of the time. The result was 10 years of crappy cars but it forced manufacturers to develop modern style fuel injection, better brake technology, more efficient engines, safer cars, etc. The manufacturers are being forced to develop these EVs right now and they are kind of like those forgettable econoboxes (remember the chevy chevette!) from the 70s. I would shy away from buying one until they get the bugs worked out - the fact that they can't drive in freezing weather, battery life is question, charge rates are variable and inconsistent, etc. I think once battery technology levels out and battery reconditioning/rebuilding becomes affordable and more universal EV ownership will be more practical.

Last week I flew into Vancouver, BC for meetings . . .rented a car - Hertz rental had a "Tesla 3" for rent . . .uhh, nope . . . I have NO IDEA where the damn charging sites are . . . and, do I have to bring it back "fully charged" ??? . . . just easier to rent a "regular" vehicle

ah, the ol' chevy "shove it"........

It was a major chore just for this guy to get his home after buying it.

Same.

Our V8 Ram, little patriot jeep and anything else we have purchased over the past 30 years has warmed up & operated just fine in -40 weather....even on the occasional day it gets colder than that, I've not had to use a winter front of any kind.

Cars & trucks from the '70s & '80s certainly needed help with keeping warm....anyone else here old enough to remember the stick on frost shields we used to put on a vehicles side windows to keep at least part of them clear?

A Tesla tells you where the sites are...

I have a coworker that drives his Tesla 125 miles round trip every day. Zero issues. Cost him about $5 a day for charging. He's driven it to Florida and back, along with other road trips. Zero issues. Him, and I discuss them every once in a while. Will I buy one? No. I'll keep driving my cheap daily that cost my $7K 4 years ago, and gets 40mpg. I'm just not a new car person...

Florida trip would require too many long duration stops to charge for me to stomach...not for me.

From what I gather Tesla has it largely figured out, even fast charging, the others - not so much.

Hertz should have all that on their website if they want people to rent them . . .

From Minneapolis to Tallahassee

Using Tesla's trip planner - 26 hours
Using Google maps - 21 hours

Have what on their website?

The only thing you need to know when you’re in a Tesla is where you are going. You don’t need to know where the charging stations are, the car knows.

So the car will dictate which route I take because that's where the chargers are? Another big no!

No. But charging stations are limited relative to gas stations. But you'll know your options before you pull out of the driveway.

Teslas are nice, well packaged cars that provide a good driving experience. Certainly an individual's needs and location play a big role in that. But lets not let the facts get in the way of a good EV bashing.

The original post is pretty spot on.

I'll just throw this out there for E-Fuels which is not so good a cost per gallon solution AT THE MOMENT. A new plant in Texas should help a little to bring the cost down and if they get enough industry on board and build more production plants and really bring the cost down then it could be at least somewhat of a hope for the ICE

The original successful fuel for Diesel engines was peanut oil,
after “the free fuel” coal dust kept wearing out engine parts.

All the carbon in peanut oil comes from CO2 that was in the air recently.
Peanut oil is “carbon neutral.”

Many other vegetable oils can do double duty as diesel fuel.

To get EVs like Teslas to be able to complete +300 mile road trips in varying temperature weather,
some one needs to fab up a little diesel generator set
with a very quiet “tuned stub” muffler
that runs on peanut,
or some other vegetable oil.

The gen set and its fuel tank needs to set in a spill proof metal tub that fits the EV trunk floor plan,
and has a latch to hold the trunk lid open a few inches to the air for ventilation.

The gen set power outlet needs to be custom connected to
the EV “regenerative braking electrical circuit”
so that the EV can be charged while driving.

I guess E85 fuel could also be used on gasoline gen sets,
but vegetable oil in grocery stores is more widely available than E85,
and more explosion resistant.
Same with propane.

One would have to declare and pay federal and state road tax on non-traditional vehicle fuel.
By law you have many days to do that paper work.

In line with current slang
these would be “ghost gensets”

No doubt. My wife works with some people that took a Tesla on a trip to the beach in North Carolina. Once they hit the mountains, it was game over. Required an overnight stay in order to charge up. That’s right, these awesome machines that have barely increased range since being proclaimed “the future” like ten years ago, will require you to cut loads of time off your vacation. Think about that, cut two days off a trip so you can save the planet. One lithium. Mine at a time.

Sure, they make sense at terminals, around town, probably one car per family, with something like my suv as the second vehicle. My gas guzzler suv would’ve made that beach trip for those people on one stop for five minutes to refuel, maybe even make it the whole way on one tank. Also didn’t require taxpayers to pay a kings ransom to Elon mush on top of the market price. Remember, a rebate from the government only increases the bottom line for the company, it doesn’t reduce the price of the car for the consumer. That’s Econ 101 right there.

If EV's are mandated I will go back to riding a horse, my C02 level with rise with every horse fart...

So the limited charge stations will dictate my route....at least I'll know where I can't go...fantastic! NOT!!

Sounds like a hillbilly hybrid

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/12-places-that-offer-ev-charging-while-you-shop/

Walmarts, Walgreens, Kohls, Whole Paychecks and similar...

Sure seems like an pickup mounted DC arc welder could be adapted to the correct EV plug type

Can ChatGPT imitate TV’s McGyver ingenuity?

notice the picture of Thomas Edison standing beside his EV

https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/ford-is-losing-66446-on-every-ev

sample quote

Yesterday afternoon, Ford reported a $722 million loss on its EV business over the first three months of 2023. During that span, Ford sold 10,866 EVs, meaning it lost $66,446 on every EV it sold.

For perspective, Ford lost the equivalent of a brand-new Mercedes-Benz E-class sedan on every EV it sold during the first quarter. (An E 450 4Matic has an MSRP of $66,700.)

It’s also worth noting that at the end of 2022, the average EV transaction price was about $65,000.

Ford blamed much of its first-quarter EV loss on lower production due to shutdowns at its plants in Mexico and Dearborn as it aims to boost its EV production to a run rate of 210,000 vehicles by the end of 2023.

end quote

Just another example of ideology not requiring facts to not only survive, but thrive.

They'll make it up in volume....LOL

We ALL better hope so.....otherwise this "green" pipe dream will be the demise of all of us.

They keep saying a “breakthrough” in batteries is going to happen any second. That they will hold more juice it charge in a couple minutes, or both. It’s starting to look like the whole nuclear fusion fiasco, you know the one where it’s only thirty years away- and always will be.

Just like the end of the world. It's only ten years away, and has been for the last three thousand years

There is a lot going on in battery research, I would have to read 10 times as much even to “skim” what is published every week, and undoubtably most of what is being discovered is kept secret.

Ford is risking a very very large amount of money on the 2 battery plants being built on I65 in KY and TN by relying on the technology of a Korean company that does not have a track record like Samsung or Panasonic/Sanyo. I would guess that relying on the workforce available in the Memphis area is risky, but TN government is throwing money that way.

Do not count out someone making a “Super Capacitor” breakthrough as well.

Every so often a volcano emits enough gas to lower the world temperature.

Ice core drill records now show us this in ways we could only guess before.

It is very reasonable to ask:
Are carbon dioxide, NOx and methane gases raising night time temperatures,
or has it been mostly “random chance” that less volcanoes than “average” have erupted over the last 150 years?

An historical fact that almost no students are taught:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6397621/Why-536-AD-worst-year-alive.html

more scientific report

https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive

Not counting your chickens before your eggs hatch comes to mind.

When the technology is ready, there will be total support for EV. UNTIL the technology is ready, don't try to cram it down our throats. Its not going to work the way it is today, so don't try to make it seem like this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

more big $ waste

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/out...-clean-energy-stuck-waiting-in-line.html

sample quote

Waiting in line
The entire electric grid in the U.S. has installed capacity of 1,250 gigawatts.
There are currently 2,020 gigawatts of capacity in the interconnection queue lines around the country,
according to a report published Thursday by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
That includes 1,350 gigawatts of power capacity,
mostly clean, looking to be constructed and connected to the grid.
The rest, 670 gigawatts, is for storage.

end quote

It seems like when technology is being developed with a specific plan in mind, it almost never ends up being used for its intended purpose. The actual practical use for the technology is when somebody figures out a application for it no one saw coming. Computers come to mind...they were basically calculators. The ability of computers to change communications and their data storage applications were later developments. I think battery technology in general has improved dramatically - cordless drill batteries 10 years ago didn't last as long and took longer to charge. We've documented that hot/cold weather extremes cause serious problems to EVs, not to mention limited lifespans of the batteries. The current application to vehicles clearly isn't perfect and I'm curious to see how the technology actually gets used in the future. Battery swap out stations? Hybrids are okay but you have twice as much stuff to go wrong.

Cars powered by compressed air sound interesting. At least it's not as hypocritical as the "environmental friendliness" of electric cars. Yes, they don't have internal combustion engines, but manufacturers tend to overlook where they'll dispose of tons of used batteries. At least, so far, I haven't seen a sufficient battery recycling program.

Yes and when one points out the problems with current batteries- the cult fanboys reply is "Yea but they'll figure it out." Who are "They?" The brightest minds ON THE PLANET- have been given nearly UNLIMITED MONEY for battery R&D......and what is the current status? Slave female and child minority labor working in dangerous mines. The earth being pillaged by polluting, unregulated equipment and procedures in poor countries that have no EPA. Batteries made by slave labor in poisonous conditions but yet a replacement battery cost is STILL tens of thousands of dollars. Fuel engines are Internal combustion vehicles- EVs are Spontaneous combustion vehicles. Those batteries have enough heat to destroy and sink cargo ships and parking garages. I wonder if Jake from State Farm is gonna authorize reimbursement for the destruction the Hybrid battery did to that parking garage near London's Luton Airport.

Give 'them' a quarter and tell 'them' to call when 'they' are finally up to speed. Until then, 'they' can go F.O.

Depending on your driving habits, weather, and availability of chargers, EVs might be a good choice or a bad one. Where's the revelation?

Was at a Ford dealer this morning and they only had one Mach E and one Lightning (for EV's) and both were outside, new mustang GT on the floor, and besides that the store was a complete ghost town

GM is slow playing their conversion to EV trucks due to diminished demand. The latest Motor Trend article had three reviews of electric vehicles that were not at all positive...the newness has worn off. The one article was specifically about the Ford Lightning. His remark (since the get the vehicles for evaluation and don't own any of them) was that if he had just spent $85K for the vehicle, he would take it back and demand a refund. The other article was even more hilarious. They purposely ran a Rivian to a total dead state to see what would happen. TOTAL debacle to get it back on the road. I will keep my ICE vehicles.

The decision to buy an electric car is no different than how you buy your clothing. It depends on what part of the planet you live on. If you live in Miami I seriously doubt stocking up on thermal underwear & knee boots lined with insulation is a good idea when shorts & sandals are better. If you're in Alaska then don't shop for the same clothes as the person in Miami. I'm in NY about 60 miles north of NYC & I would seriously consider an EV as an extra vehicle to run around locally with but they're simply out of my price range so it isn't happening.

One of my close friends bought a used Tesla a couple of years ago as a second car & loves it. I don't remember which model, but it's the more expensive one & is actually a nice looking car compared to the others. He lives in northern NJ & has driven it to SC to visit his father, He also planned the trip based on knowing that he'd have to stop to charge. He used the fast charge stations & ate while the car charged. He didn't have to stay anywhere overnight, it took 30 minutes to get an 80 to 85 percent charge. The whole trip cost him $35.