I will remotely consider owning an EV only when they come with a spare 5 gallon container full of electrons for when it is out of charge and out of range of a place to plug it in. Point 1: They are over priced Point 2: Battery service life is limited and replacement costs far exceed the value of the car when the battery dies. Point 3: Disposal of the dead and unrepairable very expensive battery presents a huge environmental toxic waste problem, for which there is no current or near future solution. Point 4: Even at the current ownership density, the electrical grid is over task to provide sufficient electrons to "gas them up", and, strictly from the engineering view, rebuilding the electrical grid to meet present and future demands [if we all only drove EV's] would cost many Billions of dollars, and take decades to approve new power generation plants, since coal and nuke are now virtually outlawed, all viable streams have been dammed and producing at capacity, [example, Lake Meade draw down in last 3 years left it nearly empty.] Point 5: If you give proper consideration to the environmental damage mining and processing of rare earth materials causes, world wide, to produce the exotic EV batteries, then add the disposal environmental problems , lack of ability to recover rare earth materials from the "dead batteries" the highly touted "EV" comes off the assembly line with an environmental toxic load that far exceeds its capacity to "Save the environment" and that is brand new, never driven, even. Bottom line, EV's are a man made environmental disaster produced under the governmental guise of "saving the world".. { Short rant complete, note the Mercedes has structurally withdrawn from the EV marketplace.. } G. Mann ...
On Tue, May 7, 2024 at 9:37 AM Floyd Thursby via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > The chinee are flooding Euro markets with cheepcheep EVs, in UK they are > like £12k, cheeper than anything any brit or euro builder can build and > cheaper than any other vehicle on the market. A big RORO dumped off > like a thousand of them a few weeks ago at some UK port. They are > likely low-powered, low-range tin cans that might appeal to some if they > have travel that would fit within the limitations of a low-end EV. Saw > a report that the chinee are building so many more EVs than needed for > domestic consumption that they are also dumping them in Germany etc. > where they are awaiting release to the markets (if that happens). If > the brits and euros cut their own throats with EV mandates and allowing > chinee imports that will be the death of local auto manufacturing, EV > products or not. Not sure they would be approved for US markets but who > knows what our elected fools will do. > > The other issue that is looming as EV adoption increases is charging the > things. You would need a home charger of some significant capacity to > charge them quickly (probably minimum 40A if not much more). For those > who don't have their own house where they could install a charger, they > have to rely on public chargers or in their apartment complexes etc. It > takes quite a bit of time to charge an EV although supercharging can be > fairly fast but 2 problems -- the batteries can't take multiple > sequential fast charges so will drop charge rate and increase charge > time, and if multiple cars are at multi-outlet charging station there is > not enough current from the grid to do them all at once, so the chargers > choke the current among each charger and then it takes longer. So you > see these long queues at charging stations when everyone decides they > need juice for tomorrow, or they are on a trip and hit a charging > station along with many others, and they can sit for hours waiting for > the queue to move. Both these issues are problematic if you want to go > on a longer trip in any reasonable time, or even charge your car in some > reasonable time for your daily commute. > > Check out a youtube channel MGUY Australia, he has been putting out some > pretty amazing vids about the whole technical and practical nonsense of > mandating EVs. > > I think the things have a place in the world and technically are kinda > cool (not that I would be keen on one) but are the not the end game. > Plug-in hybrids with regen make a lot more sense. Interestingly in > Norway where electricity is quite plentiful and apparently relatively > cheap, EV adoption has been high (subsidies, COA, etc.) but I saw that > many people have a gasser they keep too, for longer trips and in the > winter when EV range goes to shite due to the cold. So a mix is what > the market votes for even when an EV is a relatively cheap option. > > --FT > > > On 5/7/24 11:58 AM, Randy Bennell via Mercedes wrote: > > I am not a real fan of the electric vehicles being pushed upon us by > > the fools who think they are wonderful, but I see enough propaganda on > > a daily basis to make me think about them. > > > > Some of you folks are engineers etc and likely have a better grasp of > > this sort of thing than I do, so here are my current thoughts on the > > subject. > > > > It appears to me that most of the current crop of electric vehicles > > are high powered and very quick. Some or perhaps most are also all > > wheel drive. They are also generally quite expensive. They require > > high powered chargers to charge in reasonable periods of time and the > > batteries do not last for the long haul and are expensive to replace. > > > > I am wondering why. Would it not make a lot of sense, if one is trying > > to make a wholesale change to the vehicle world to build lesser > > vehicles. Use smaller motors that use less power. That should either > > extend the range or permit smaller batteries of perhaps both would be > > possible. That should also result in lower electrical use for charging > > purposes so it would be less expensive to operate them. If the battery > > was smaller, it should weigh less and special tires might not be > > required and the tires should last longer. Most would not require all > > wheel drive so there would be maybe 2 motors rather than 4 of maybe > > even, only one motor like we have enjoyed in the past. Smaller > > batteries should be less expensive to replace. Maybe they could even > > be swappable entities rather than require a lot of work to replace. > > Despite the fact that "luxury" cars are popular, there must be a > > market for more basic cars without all of the electronic gadgetry in > > cars like the Tesla. > > > > Randy > > > > > > _______________________________________ > > http://www.okiebenz.com > > > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > > -- > --FT > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com