It really depends on where you live. There are some parts of the world where environmental factors like ocean humidity or winter road salting will cause a car’s frame to rust through in a few years if you’re not careful. Look up the Rust Belt for an example.
On the other hand, if you live somewhere warm and dry, your car’s frame and body will outlast its original mechanical components.
“Rust Belt” isn’t literal, it refers to an area of the US where industrial manufacturing declined significant in the second half of the 20th century. It’s called that in part at least because its previous moniker was “Steel Belt”.
I think you’re talking about batteries from nearly 15 years ago, which did degrade significantly with age and/or use. There has been a significant and noticeable improvement since then. The person you were taking to did say today’s batteries.
When did you last lose a car to engine failure? Electronics, gears, suspension, stuff like that, but not the engine. They have to over engineer the battery because the earlier popular electric cars had bad batteries and they have to over-compensate. Hence today’s batteries.
Engine failure doesn’t mean the car is done. You can rebuild engines for a 1/10th of the cost of another car. The engine is not the only thing that makes a car a car. Just like batteries should not be the only thing that makes an electric car a electric car.
Yes. The person I was replying to thought it was somehow bad for the battery to outlast the car. I was making the point that that’s fine. In response to your point about the cost of an engine, I should say that batteries are a far bigger part of the cost of an electric car - it’s really just not very complicated apart from that - very few moving parts indeed compared to a combustion engine. That’s why the car companies aren’t very keen - unless they make their own batteries, they’re not adding as much value when they manufacture them. They prefer to push the hybrids which have the complexity of both and a lot less battery capacity (but very much don’t have the advantages of both for the driver).
I see, batteries do seem to cost more but the way I see it, 30k car and then a 10g new battery pack and your good for another 200k miles, I just don’t see why you would go with a new car again.
Personally, I tend to buy something one to three years old so that it’s already dropped 10k off the new price, then run it for ten years or so until it starts getting unreliable then move on to the next one. It then costs me about 3k to 4k a year to have a car with no problems at all. I honestly don’t know when my electric car will start to get unreliable, but I’m not going back to noisy, smelly and slow ever, I’m sticking with quiet, clean and fast and never using a petrol station again in my life. My partner was a bit more sceptical at first but has very much come round and in a few years we’ll be a two EV household.
I have never had an issue with either of those things. On road trips, there are plenty of fast ev chargers these days. And my EV already goes 320mi on a full charge. You don’t want to sit at max charge for long anyway. I only charge to 50% and haven’t had much range anxiety. Realistically it’s better than gas, because at home it charges overnight (even to 100%).
Charging on road trips at a fast charger takes as long as a quick trip to the bathroom and grabbing a bite to eat.
Sounds nice. In much of the US it’s not at all that easy to find fast chargers and longer lasting and quicker charging batteries would significantly help EV adoption here.
Assuming you can charge at home for daily driving …. A map of superchargers looks like it covers at least the interstates decently . Sure, there’s less covered areas, and not as frequently as rest areas and may be crowded , and away from interstates a few less populated areas are poorly covered but t seems like 90+% of US population ought to be able to road trip.
It really seems like charging from home is the more important issue to address, since it does make a huge difference. There are way too many apartments and condos where there is no incentive to provide charging, even if the tenants want it. We need more incentives plus find a way for them to see the need
Out of curiosity, have you tried? Genuinely asking. Because I thought the same before I caved and bought mine. I’ve now gone on multi-thousand mile road trips with no issues. But I acknowledge there are places that need more chargers.
Have electric hybrid which obviously isn’t the same thing, but was considering going full EV. With the hybrid I am always on the lookout for places to charge to avoid gas and keep preconditioning option going. Often difficult to find a charging station never mind fast charging. I’ve paid attention to the 200mile mark to imagine what it would look like if I didn’t have the gas backup and it’s not pretty. Sure you could do it with some patience and careful planning, but in my country unless you are staying near a coast, EV really becomes less practical for long distance traveling.
Can you charge from home? I have a house with off street parking and sufficient electrical service, that I installed a level 2 charger for about the cost of a new electric stove circuit. It’s so nice always being charged for local trips. So far I’m good for 200 mile round trips, and I just plug in at night if I’m low. This is more convenient than how I used to have to go to a gas station every couple weeks
I have a 400 mile one way trip coming up, so we’ll see.
In 8 months, it’ll be only the second time I’ll need to use a supercharger. Otherwise I never need to go anywhere to recharge; I simply plug in at home overnight when it’s low. It’s the same as keeping a phone charged: it’s just always ready.
So I did some route planning as a what-if. Looking at a map of superchargers, there are many along my route - it seems like every town along the interstate has at least one. Letting the software figure it out, it recommended two 20 minute stops. On a trip that easily runs nine hours if there’s any traffic, 2 20 minute stops aren’t really any different than I would plan anyway: how fast do you scarf down your French fries and cheeseburger?
How often do you do that? Have you used ABRP to see how many chargers there are on the routes that you’d take (not a requirement in most cases btw, most EVs already show you where they are).
Today’s EV’s batteries will already outlast the car.
Uhh do what? You’re assuming the cars last less than 10 years? Who are these people throwing away cars after such a short time?
I read about a survey that found Tesla batteries were still at an average 85% health after 250k miles. Not bad at at all
That’s a good thing.
It really depends on where you live. There are some parts of the world where environmental factors like ocean humidity or winter road salting will cause a car’s frame to rust through in a few years if you’re not careful. Look up the Rust Belt for an example.
On the other hand, if you live somewhere warm and dry, your car’s frame and body will outlast its original mechanical components.
No that’s just proper maintenance… allowing salt to sit on the car constantly is not keeping up with maintenance.
Also as the other user has stated rust belt has nothing to do with cars rusting.
“Rust Belt” isn’t literal, it refers to an area of the US where industrial manufacturing declined significant in the second half of the 20th century. It’s called that in part at least because its previous moniker was “Steel Belt”.
I think you’re talking about batteries from nearly 15 years ago, which did degrade significantly with age and/or use. There has been a significant and noticeable improvement since then. The person you were taking to did say today’s batteries.
Even then the batteries should not outlast the car. That’s insane.
When did you last lose a car to engine failure? Electronics, gears, suspension, stuff like that, but not the engine. They have to over engineer the battery because the earlier popular electric cars had bad batteries and they have to over-compensate. Hence today’s batteries.
Engine failure doesn’t mean the car is done. You can rebuild engines for a 1/10th of the cost of another car. The engine is not the only thing that makes a car a car. Just like batteries should not be the only thing that makes an electric car a electric car.
Yes. The person I was replying to thought it was somehow bad for the battery to outlast the car. I was making the point that that’s fine. In response to your point about the cost of an engine, I should say that batteries are a far bigger part of the cost of an electric car - it’s really just not very complicated apart from that - very few moving parts indeed compared to a combustion engine. That’s why the car companies aren’t very keen - unless they make their own batteries, they’re not adding as much value when they manufacture them. They prefer to push the hybrids which have the complexity of both and a lot less battery capacity (but very much don’t have the advantages of both for the driver).
I see, batteries do seem to cost more but the way I see it, 30k car and then a 10g new battery pack and your good for another 200k miles, I just don’t see why you would go with a new car again.
Personally, I tend to buy something one to three years old so that it’s already dropped 10k off the new price, then run it for ten years or so until it starts getting unreliable then move on to the next one. It then costs me about 3k to 4k a year to have a car with no problems at all. I honestly don’t know when my electric car will start to get unreliable, but I’m not going back to noisy, smelly and slow ever, I’m sticking with quiet, clean and fast and never using a petrol station again in my life. My partner was a bit more sceptical at first but has very much come round and in a few years we’ll be a two EV household.
They outlast the car, but don’t have the range and take too long to charge, that’s the problem, not the longevity.
I have never had an issue with either of those things. On road trips, there are plenty of fast ev chargers these days. And my EV already goes 320mi on a full charge. You don’t want to sit at max charge for long anyway. I only charge to 50% and haven’t had much range anxiety. Realistically it’s better than gas, because at home it charges overnight (even to 100%).
Charging on road trips at a fast charger takes as long as a quick trip to the bathroom and grabbing a bite to eat.
Sounds nice. In much of the US it’s not at all that easy to find fast chargers and longer lasting and quicker charging batteries would significantly help EV adoption here.
Assuming you can charge at home for daily driving …. A map of superchargers looks like it covers at least the interstates decently . Sure, there’s less covered areas, and not as frequently as rest areas and may be crowded , and away from interstates a few less populated areas are poorly covered but t seems like 90+% of US population ought to be able to road trip.
It really seems like charging from home is the more important issue to address, since it does make a huge difference. There are way too many apartments and condos where there is no incentive to provide charging, even if the tenants want it. We need more incentives plus find a way for them to see the need
Out of curiosity, have you tried? Genuinely asking. Because I thought the same before I caved and bought mine. I’ve now gone on multi-thousand mile road trips with no issues. But I acknowledge there are places that need more chargers.
The answer is always no. I just want to know who these people are that wake up, get in their truck, tow their boat 800 miles every single day are.
They don’t exist, they would just rather inconvenience themselves 364 days a year to shave an hour off a long trip one day a year.
It’s absurd.
That’s kind of what I was getting at, thanks.
Have electric hybrid which obviously isn’t the same thing, but was considering going full EV. With the hybrid I am always on the lookout for places to charge to avoid gas and keep preconditioning option going. Often difficult to find a charging station never mind fast charging. I’ve paid attention to the 200mile mark to imagine what it would look like if I didn’t have the gas backup and it’s not pretty. Sure you could do it with some patience and careful planning, but in my country unless you are staying near a coast, EV really becomes less practical for long distance traveling.
Can you charge from home? I have a house with off street parking and sufficient electrical service, that I installed a level 2 charger for about the cost of a new electric stove circuit. It’s so nice always being charged for local trips. So far I’m good for 200 mile round trips, and I just plug in at night if I’m low. This is more convenient than how I used to have to go to a gas station every couple weeks
Yes. But I am referring to multi day travel not daily travel.
I have a 400 mile one way trip coming up, so we’ll see.
In 8 months, it’ll be only the second time I’ll need to use a supercharger. Otherwise I never need to go anywhere to recharge; I simply plug in at home overnight when it’s low. It’s the same as keeping a phone charged: it’s just always ready.
So I did some route planning as a what-if. Looking at a map of superchargers, there are many along my route - it seems like every town along the interstate has at least one. Letting the software figure it out, it recommended two 20 minute stops. On a trip that easily runs nine hours if there’s any traffic, 2 20 minute stops aren’t really any different than I would plan anyway: how fast do you scarf down your French fries and cheeseburger?
How often do you do that? Have you used ABRP to see how many chargers there are on the routes that you’d take (not a requirement in most cases btw, most EVs already show you where they are).