Arguments in Favor of Electric Vehicles

My living in the Silicon Valley EV cultural bubble was brought home to me over last-night's Christmas Eve dinner when I sat across the table from a Southern California family member's husband who had just bought a F-150 and yet is neither a contractor nor even a hands-on person (at all!). It didn't help that I was wearing my bright-red T-shirt (over my green shirt, in full Christmas colors) with the logo staring him in the face: "You Plug in Your Cellphone, You Plug in your Laptop, Why Not Plug In Your Car?". Needless to say, the discussions were 'interesting', but civilized.

Here's a nice piece which helps bolster some of our arguments:
http://insideevs.com/op-ed-in-truth-evs-are-the-normal-cars-and-ice-vehicles-are-niche-cars/

Came across this somewhat eclectic webpage that I thought might be of interest -

http://aprs.org/EV-misinformation.html

The unbelievable part is that I frequently encounter people who i would think to know better. Since I work in Earth Science, i just have to shake my head and move on. For example, I recall a discussion with a JPL scientist during one of our long over night baby sitting of our instrument on the Global Hawk, he was complaining how ridiculously price of the Tesla, and how Tesla is not going to make it. So I asked him how much did he just paid for his Mercedes, ...about $70K....pleeeezzzz, get out of my face

pbui19 said:

. . . . I recall a discussion with a JPL scientist during one of our long over night baby sitting of our instrument on the Global Hawk, he was complaining how ridiculously price of the Tesla, and how Tesla is not going to make it. So I asked him how much did he just paid for his Mercedes, ...about $70K....pleeeezzzz, get out of my face

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. . . . and what is the only *real* distinct difference as to what you get for your money comparing his $70K luxury Mercedes to a similarly priced luxury Tesla? The Tesla comes with a Free, Lifetime supply of fuel, of course!

Tough sell, indeed - Who would want a deal like that?

Don

Some of my own:

It doesn't matter which energy source(s) you support, an electric car can run from it. I like solar and my car runs on sunshine. You like coal? Good, an EV can use coal power. An ICE car can only run on (likely foreign) oil.

Electric drive scales quite well. An EV can be something like a hoverboard, to an electric bicycle, to a motorcycle, a car, truck, and even SUVs. Whatever your transportation need, electric drive can handle it.

PV1 said:

Some of my own:

It doesn't matter which energy source(s) you support, an electric car can run from it. I like solar and my car runs on sunshine. You like coal? Good, an EV can use coal power. An ICE car can only run on (likely foreign) oil.

Electric drive scales quite well. An EV can be something like a hoverboard, to an electric bicycle, to a motorcycle, a car, truck, and even SUVs. Whatever your transportation need, electric drive can handle it.

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Even busses and tractor trailer rigs. Train locomotives are Serial hybrids with electric motive power. So are large mining equipment (those huge dump trucks in pit style coal mines) electric drives move the huge things around powered by a big genset onboard). We recently got two BEV city busses here (common in some parts of Europe) Not so much here in the SW USA yet. But two is a start. Saw one the other day while driving the 'i'. I thought . . . there is your big brother buddy.

Aerowhatt

Aerowhatt said:

We recently got two BEV city busses here (common in some parts of Europe) Not so much here in the SW USA yet.

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I read an article a year or so ago about electric busses in Switzerland. They start out the day on a full charge and then they quick charge at high amps for 15 or 20 seconds automatically each time they pull over to load/unload passengers. They run all day without the battery running down. That sort of technology could be applied in many 'route' transportation situations

Don

Don said:

I read an article a year or so ago about electric busses in Switzerland. They start out the day on a full charge and then they quick charge at high amps for 15 or 20 seconds automatically each time they pull over to load/unload passengers. They run all day without the battery running down. That sort of technology could be applied in many 'route' transportation situations

Don

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Absolutely it could. The BEV busses here are different though. They have a range of around 145 miles in stop and go route driving. They are the big long city busses too, the ones hinged in the middle. Less charging infrastructure needed with big battery packs. I vaguely remember that the average city bus only covers about 120 miles in a shift. We have Natural Gas and diesel powered ones as well. The diesel ones are really hard to be around after following one of the others a few times in traffic.

BEV tractors for in metro freight delivery would make a ton of sense as well. They mostly use different tractors locally than for long haul anyway so it would not add additional steps logistically for freight delivery companies.

Aerowhatt

Kind of tongue-in-cheek:

"Well, your V8 Diesel still needs an electric motor to spin it before it'll work." :mrgreen:

That's cool to hear of city buses running on battery electric. Pittsburgh's T (rail trolley/subway) has an overhead wire, but that's about the only electric mass transit around here.

Pennsylvania Railroad's old GG-1 electric locomotives were among the most favored and longest-lasting locomotives used from the 1940's until the last unit operating in 1983. A pair of GG-1 electrics had as much tractive effort (pulling power) as the Union Pacific Big Boy steam locomotive :shock: . Much of the overhead wires still exist today to run more modern electric locomotives.

Did all the CG-1 locomotives come in Raspberry? I never knew that color was EV tradition.

Mitsubishi provides a nice list of talking points on page 3 of their original i-MiEV sales training document.

http://www.imiev411.com/sites/default/files/pdf/iMiev_Certification_Training.pdf

A good bottom line (at $4 gas and 12 cent electricity) is energy cost of 3.6 cents per mile for an i-MiEV versus 8 cents in a 50 mpg hybrid. For an average 12 kilomile/year driver, that's an annual fuel savings of $528

jray3 said:

Mitsubishi provides a nice list of talking points on page 3 of their original i-MiEV sales training document.

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Wow, some optimistic projections in that document. Kinda sad.

Here is a comment that was sent by a reader to CBC about electric cars :

"Between 2011 and 2015, there have been approximately 11,000 electric cars sold in Canada. In 2012 alone, there were 1.6 million fossil fuel powered vehicles sold in Canada.

The fact is that electric car technology is not yet viable. If these cars were so good, people would buy them."

The question he should be asking is why 11,000 cars were sold if the car was so bad. Added to the +million that has been sold world wide. Maybe rather than comparing a percentage of total sales, he should be looking at why so many do buy electric cars.

Dave

jray3 said:

Did all the GG-1 locomotives come in Raspberry? I never knew that color was EV tradition.

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It's called Tuscan red, but it is quite similar to the Raspberry color. There was also a dark green color, both available with either 5 pinstripes or 1 solid stripe. Overall, there were several different paint schemes.

I'm often in awe.. I can park my car do my tasks and without an additional stop have more miles to go than when I first stopped and plugged in. It still seems like magic compared to the past with an ice.

dniemeyer99 said:

Here is a comment that was sent by a reader to CBC about electric cars :

"Between 2011 and 2015, there have been approximately 11,000 electric cars sold in Canada. In 2012 alone, there were 1.6 million fossil fuel powered vehicles sold in Canada.

The fact is that electric car technology is not yet viable. If these cars were so good, people would buy them."

The question he should be asking is why 11,000 cars were sold if the car was so bad. Added to the +million that has been sold world wide. Maybe rather than comparing a percentage of total sales, he should be looking at why so many do buy electric cars.

Dave

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I think the reasons EVs haven't taken over the world are there and they are valid....Not everyone has a place to park where charging is available. Some folks need to drive more than 50-75 miles at a clip. Some don't have $75K to buy a Tesla. Some folks need to tow, haul, etc.

Don't get me wrong. I love my iMiev, but there are some things it just can't do. I use it when I can, but I use my ICE when I have to.

"The fact is that electric car technology is not yet viable. If these cars were so good, people would buy them."

It's simple really, I hear it over and over from other owners and would be owners. It's HARD WORK to buy an electric car. I could have purchased 10 ICE's with the same amount of time and effort it took to get my 'i' into the driveway. Dealers in large part are the issue!

Aerowhatt

So what about the 'smart and virtuous" angle. Not a lot of people are buying EVs, because most of the sheeple are stupid.
There i said it. I must now be one of the liberal elite.

Furthering the Canadian example, According to Statistics Canada, in 2012 just 23.7 per cent of Canadian taxfilers contributed to an Retirement Savings Plan.

THEREFORE, retirement savings plans must not be a good idea in Canada because most people don't do it, let alone contribute at the recommended rate.

Appeals to 'join the elite' can be a slippery slope and easily backfire, but smart folks understand that it's not an elitist appeal if we're trying to convince as many people as possible to join the club and will help them to do it very inexpensively.

Well, you buy an expensive vehicle that is offset by lower operating costs. In my case we now have 1 salary for the next year, so I bought the car with the smallest amount of variable monthly costs. Not the cheapest car to purchase, those are 2 different things.

That alone saves me over 2000 euros a year in operating costs alone, not accounting for maintenance for a (previously) 10 year old diesel.

I still find it amazing that I can slapped a few solar panels on my roof, and I can drive. Actually they also heat my house and hot water. Given the current low oil price, I wish our officials have the courage and vision to eliminate all the oil&gas subsidies.

pbui19 said:

have the courage and vision to eliminate all the oil&gas subsidies.

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oooh walking into a minefield with that one...

do keep in mind that some things have been engrained long enough to cause real ripple effect when changed. Of course it makes sense, and of course it should be done, but there is A LOT of entrenched systematic teachings(think of the pantsuit lady from the oil gas companies talking to millions on TV boxes) and political posturing to set scenarios where politicians are actually voted into office spouting and promising that they will never do such things.

You can't expect the politicians to be out ahead on anything that is responsible and good for the populace, without educating the populace first.



side note (this is off topic area) I wonder what the Bundy Militants in Bend Oregon would think about the stopping of subsidies that would make the gas for their trucks and SUVs more expensive....
(God why did those idiots have to come to MY state.... OREGON wants the BUNDYS gone!!!)