Today, would you buy an EV vehicle.

[mikester]

I'd buy a plug-in hybrid. An all electric would only be good as a second car for local trips for us.

An all electric car is like a motorcycle with a peanut gas tank that loses 20% of it's range when the temperatures drop below freezing and even more range is lost when there's snow and slush on the ground. Not very practical for snow belt country.

Right now our electricity costs $0.15/kwhr after all the fees and taxes are included. When it goes to $0.25/kwhr in the near future, the cost to drive per km will be comparable to the plug-in hybrid.

 

[Jstpssng]

I see first hand (because of where I work) the resources being devoted to EVs, it's going to happen and if you want to purchase a vehicle, you'll have to purchase what ever it is the companies are selling. Eventually, through legislation, penalties, etc., ICEs will be forced off the road. ICEs have had a good run, over 100 years isn't bad, maybe it's time for a change. Henry Ford had said "If I had asked what people they wanted, they would have said faster horses." I'm sure there were people back then that said similar things to what's being said today about EVs and how many people would prefer that we go back to riding horses?

No doubt. However, the question is "Would you buy one today?" The vehicles aren't being made and the infrastructure isn't in place for many people. The Lightening is the closest thing to practical for my purposes as well as many others... yet it's too small for a real work truck, and too darned big for my every day use. Manufacturers themselves are just beginning to produce on a large scale basis; and as many others have mentioned, the grid isn't ready for it either.

 

[Hay Dude]

Next we’ll be forced into driving electric hovercraft because asphalt & rubber tires create too much pollution and need too much oil to produce.
You just watch
These folks never stop. Ever.
If you think cars depreciate quickly (and they DO) it makes you wonder what that gas burning vehicle in your garage is going to be worth in a few years? Probably ZERO.

 

[lman]

I see first hand (because of where I work) the resources being devoted to EVs, it's going to happen and if you want to purchase a vehicle, you'll have to purchase what ever it is the companies are selling. Eventually, through legislation, penalties, etc., ICEs will be forced off the road. ICEs have had a good run, over 100 years isn't bad, maybe it's time for a change. Henry Ford had said "If I had asked what people they wanted, they would have said faster horses." I'm sure there were people back then that said similar things to what's being said today about EVs and how many people would prefer that we go back to riding horses?

With the cost of EV's we may need to go back to riding horses.

 

[CH4Ohio]

If you have an EV in my area, then it "runs" on (roughly) 20% nuclear, 30% natural gas, 45% coal, 3% hydro, and less than 2% wind and solar. That's simply where the electricity comes from and it's similar across the country. If it's "cheaper" in any way, then it's solely due to government subsidies, and since the government doesn't really have any money, we're all paying for those discounts too.

Until we make a drastic turn and start building new nuclear plants, instead of closing them, we simply don't have the generation capacity to support this pipe-dream. And it's not more efficient or more green based on the above. Except for urban or planned commuter use to take advantage of subsidies and "free" charging stations, I still can't see how this makes sense.

 

[CH4Ohio]

I drive a gasoline-powered pickup truck and often haul decent sized loads on a trailer. My next vehicle will be another gasoline-powered pickup truck as I am not enamored with the cost and lack of reliability of the post-2007 on-road diesel engines. A battery-powered vehicle would be almost impossible to use in this situation due to technical limitations.

Batteries do not hold all that much energy, they do not replenish it at a very fast rate, and recharging a battery-powered car battery draws a huge amount of power. Any vehicle that requires a significant amount of energy and/or intends to run for a long time is going to be very difficult to power from a battery due to these significant limitations. This is also why the current battery-powered vehicles are sedans and small "crossover" SUVs, as they require the least power to propel down the road. They are generally used by city dwellers for short trips where they can leave their house and return easily on one battery charge, so they can reasonably charge overnight and not completely kill every power grid, distribution line, and transformer in existence.

A gallon of gasoline has about 114,000 BTU, which is equivalent to 33.4 kWh. A typical 3/4 ton gasser pickup has about a 35 gallon tank. That tank will fill in 5 minutes from completely empty to completely full at a typical gas pump, which dispense 7 gal/min. It takes about 70 HP (52 kW) to propel a typical 3/4 ton pickup empty down the road at 65 MPH to overcome drag force. That truck will get about 12 MPG at that speed, so you will get about 420 miles of range from that gas tank. Now, let's make that 3/4 ton pickup battery-powered. You will need a 330 kWh battery for an equivalent range. Any battery-powered vehicle battery of 100 kWh or larger is considered very large, so this is more than three times as large as a very large battery. A 100 kWh battery in a Tesla Model S with their fastest rapid charger (the 350 kVA "Supercharger") takes about 50 minutes to charge from dead to full, so this would be about three hours to charge from dead to full, for a 6 1/2 hour runtime. Charge the thing at home with a 10 kW "Level 2" charger that uses a 50 amp circuit and you will be charging it for 33 hours. (If you use a regular 120 volt outlet, it will take over a week.) Now, that is with the truck empty. Pull a trailer and your mileage will get even worse, you may only get 250 miles of range before your tank is empty or your battery is dead.

This is also not taking into account the weight of the battery pack. The absolute lightest battery-powered car batteries weigh 13 lb per kWh, so that 330 kWh battery would weigh 4,290 lb. A typical 3/4 ton pickup weighs about 7000 pounds, so this would result in a curb weight increasing to 11,290 pounds. That is over the GVWR of most 1 ton pickups let alone 3/4 tonners, so you would need to upgrade to a 1 1/2 ton to get any actual load-carrying capacity (and then your range drops because it takes even more power to push one of those down the road.) Either that or your range shrinks massively by using a smaller battery in order to try to use the 3/4 ton truck chassis and still have the load-carrying capacity of say, a Ford Ranger. I suppose you could put the battery on a trailer and pull it around behind you to retain some capacity, but that would be a massive hassle, reduce your range due to increased load of pulling the trailer, and reduce your towing capacity by the weight of the battery as it would have to share the trailer with your load.

We haven't even gotten into the cost of such a battery (estimated at about $40,000 or so), that filling up only one battery charge of a 330 kWh battery is about 1/4 of an average household's entire monthly power use for everything else, or that the fastest fast-chargers (which would have to run for 3 hours to charge this battery) draw 14 times as much power as the "large" (25 kVA) residential transformers can handle.

Great comparison!! Basic physics should lead us down another path. Try to carry a 1 gallon can of electricity to your EV when you run out of "fuel".

There was a big push for CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) vehicles back in the 80's and 90's. It was a much easier transition since you could convert or build internal combustion engines to run on CNG and didn't need all the new battery technology. Still couldn't compete with the energy density of liquid hydrocarbon fuel and the free-market benefits wouldn't support it. Some fleets (city buses, etc.) that have central garages and fill-stations use it and we benefit from the clean exhaust, but several large cylinders at 3000+ PSI still won't provide the range that gasoline or diesel provides with a much smaller, much cheaper fuel tank.

 

[CH4Ohio]

I would much rather have a hybrid Toyota than an EV Ford...or any EV. Given how I would typically use a pickup, an EV would probably work, but i don't like limiting my options.

Not sure which "hybrid" you're referring to. There are Plug-IN hybrids and then there are Regenerative Braking hybrids that don't plug-into the grid to charge.

I think the Regenerative Braking systems make total sense. Capture downhill coasting energy and braking energy to charge an onboard battery that is used for slow driving and when the engine can be "switched off". These give max benefit in city driving conditions but boost overall MPG enough to be considered. Not dependent on charging stations. Totally self-contained. Millions of these have been made for decades by Honda, Ford, etc.

Why wouldn't an expansion of these systems be a better first-step? Still adds to the cost, but doesn't require any additional infrastructure.

 

[CH4Ohio]

The grid problem will become your problem, unless you are off the grid, because the problem is lack of power generating capacity, not distribution. New plants are 10+ years in the making. They just took a large nuclear plant offline in Michigan, not to be fired back up. What is it going to be replaced with?? The mid-west was already looking at rolling outages due to lack of capacity BEFORE they took this plant off line.

RIGHT!! The "plan" was to decommission nuclear plants and coal plants because environmentalists don't like those. (In fact, nuclear is the most "green.) Natural Gas was supposed to replace that load. Suddenly, we're at war with Natural Gas and hydrocarbons. More coal is being used now to fill the gap.

Wonder what it costs a country to drastically switch something as fundamental as energy policy every 4 - 8 years??

 

[Oaktree]

Until we make a drastic turn and start building new nuclear plants, instead of closing them, we simply don't have the generation capacity to support this pipe-dream. And it's not more efficient or more green based on the above. Except for urban or planned commuter use to take advantage of subsidies and "free" charging stations, I still can't see how this makes sense.

Agreed we'll need a LOT more generating capacity if this big push toward an all-electric society continues, not just vehicles but many cities are banning/restricting fossil fuel homes too.
The continuing drought in western states dependent on hydro power isn't helping matters one bit.

I do think the nuke bus has left the station though. They're a tough sell with the public...mention nuclear power and people think Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, etc. The power industry hasn't done itself any favors either in that regard either, stories regarding lax maintenance abound. Remember back in the 70s when nuclear power was being hyped as "too cheap to meter". How'd that work out?
Then there's the issue with the radioactive waste that just keeps getting kicked down the road. No one wants that in their backyard, who can blame them?

I think the Regenerative Braking systems make total sense. Capture downhill coasting energy and braking energy to charge an onboard battery that is used for slow driving and when the engine can be "switched off". These give max benefit in city driving conditions but boost overall MPG enough to be considered. Not dependent on charging stations. Totally self-contained.

Agree that these make way more sense in the real world than an all-electric vehicle.

 

[Jchonline]

With many manufacturers now advertising ev, even in trucks (Ford Lightning, CyberTruck, Rivian) would you invest in an EV vehicle? If everything moves to electric, when do you think you would switch to an ev -- or maybe Hybrid. The future of gas and diesel looks questionable.

I bought a new truck in 2021. Things are changing. The V8 engine is almost a thing of the past. When do you think, as you shop for a new vehicle, you will consider EV as your best choice? Will that happen when you want to keep your truck 6-8 years and gas stations might become difficult to find?

Then there are EV tractors.

Just curious. Thought this when looking for a new truck.

First, those flashy EV trucks are just that…advertisements. Cybertruck is still in cyberspace. Rivian has hundreds of thousands of orders and maybe a couple of thousand actually produced. Lightning is the only one that might actually gain some market.

The issue is you are focusing on the EV itself…and that is the farthest along. There is no infrastructure to support mass adoption right now. No charging stations, not enough power on the grid being produced, not stable enough either. We have to fix the power production and charging first. Then we can talk about EVs.