Battery based vehicles of today and tomorrow pt 2

[Gale Hawkins]

Recent article.

Journalist Takes Road Trip in Electric Car, Spends More Time Charging Than Sleeping - Now Says Gas Smells So Sweet

Thinking of taking a road trip in an electric vehicle? You might want to think again after reading about this nightmare journey.

www.westernjournal.com

WSJ

I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.

Our writer drove from New Orleans to Chicago and back to test the feasibility of taking a road trip in an EV. She wouldn’t soon do it again.

www.wsj.com

In a piece published by the Journal on Friday, Rachel Wolfe described charging a Kia EV6 for more time than she spent sleeping during a trek from New Orleans to Chicago.

Wolfe’s opening statement, which should serve as a portent to anyone who thinks the charging infrastructure or the capabilities of electric vehicles are there yet: “I thought it would be fun.”

Spoiler alert: It was not. Despite the fact that the EV6 is a hot new vehicle and the fact Wolfe had made several long trips in her (relatively) antediluvian 2008 Volkswagen Jetta, the experience turned into a nightmare of public-charging infrastructure frustrations and waiting around.

Wolfe wrote that she “plotted a meticulous route” using an app that showed public chargers along the 2,000-mile round-trip route. Most of the chargers, however, were only Level 2, which means they would take eight hours for a full charge.

I would encourage everyone to read the full article. There are many more facts to consider for either short or long range driving overall.

One item of interest was many area only had 1 charging station with only one charge cord. Not only wait for the charge, you wait in line behind others. This can take up another whole day of your travels.

Yes this drives home why so many potential EV buyers are becoming Tesla fanboys because they address the charging situation before they went very far many years ago and are still enhancing it. It will be interesting to see if Tesla ever faces any competition from the current OEM players dipping their toes into the EV pool.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Aerosols from burning fossil fuels are masking global warming, UW researchers find

A study found that eliminating greenhouse gases is essential but there is a short-term drawback associated with it. There are still things we can do, researchers say.

www.seattletimes.com

I do not see a simple solution especially if concrete is a high source.

 

[airbiscuit]

 

[cqaigy2]

Tesla Autopilot safety faces bigger questions as US upgrades crash probe

Tesla says that in Q4 2021, "we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.59 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA's most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles."

 

[buckeyefarmer]

 

[Gale Hawkins]

View attachment 749578

At least the overhead lines seem to be heavy enough to run that bank of chargers.

 

[MossRoad]

View attachment 749578

Yeouch!

 

[cqaigy2]

Actually those chargers probably all shut off, but even so, it's only maybe, what 100 or so volts at a bajillion amps.

 

[Grumpycat]

Read this article over the weekend. Kinda hits all of my fears of a road trip. Around town, and about the immediate area would be fine for us. So maybe as a 3rd car. But for us, it's a no right now.

I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.

Our writer drove from New Orleans to Chicago and back to test the feasibility of taking a road trip in an EV. She wouldn’t soon do it again.

www.wsj.com

Behind a paywall. By all reports the author did everything possible to ensure the bad outcome.

New Orleans to SF is trivial in a Tesla, so drive a "we need more infrastructure" CCS Kia with poor planning to guarantee trouble. For those who do not know Tesla builds Superchargers™ without government handouts. VW Dieselgate "fines" are given to a company called Electrify America who builds CCS fast chargers at Walmarts and other places. EA has reliability problems due to poorly designed hardware.

There are 3 major DC Fast Charging "standards" in North America. 1) Tesla, 2) CCS, and in distant 3rd Nissan's CHAdeMO. Tesla sells adapters to use CCS and CHAdeMO but none of the others can use Tesla because no manufacturer accepted Tesla's offer to participate as equals in building and maintaining Superchargers when they expected government and others to give them a charging network for no effort on their own.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Yesterday I left home in the fully charged Leaf showing a estimated 150 miles of range, drove 33.3 miles and had the estimated range of 82 miles when I got back to house 6 hours later. I ran the AC nonstop for the 6 hours while out.

It took a raw 18 kWh from the grid to recharge to 100% at $0.12 per kWh.

$2.14 will not buy even half a gallon of gas locally. I have not ran the same test using the F-150 or the Subaru to see if they will beat this or not.