Americans are buying Teslas, not EVs, but experts say that's about to change

kjclow

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Education is a prime component. From a base Corolla (~$20k US), stepping up to a hybrid is another $3600. Going from an Avalon to a Mirai is a $13,000 jump. That would take 8-9 years of normal (15,000 miles/yr) driving to make up. Of course that's all before the potential new rebates.

Most consumers won't look at the long term effect, only at the damage done to the bank account today.
 

TurboABA

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Had to google that new Prius just so that I could know what you're talking about....
Then I looked a fueling stations.... they are only on the ends of the country.... perfect..... useless too.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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Hydrogen vehicles aren't a real thing, and it's unclear whether or not they ever will be. I would doubt it, as adding one major infrastructure (charging) may be more than enough for the country to handle. Adding two probably simply won't happen.
 

TurboABA

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I think hydrogen is the way of the future.... for the exact same reason (infrastructure) that you've mentioned.
Fuel transport, refueling time, supply, are all favorable.
 

turbobrick240

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Hydrogen may have some edge use cases in transport over the next decade. The main problem is the inefficiency, high cost, and lack of hydrogen infrastructure. Big oil&gas likes to push Hydrogen because most is made from reformed nat. gas. Not really sure why the Japanese automakers seem to think it's great. They are probably just trying to slow down the transition away from the profitable ICEV racket.
 

nwdiver

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I think hydrogen is the way of the future.... for the exact same reason (infrastructure) that you've mentioned.
Fuel transport, refueling time, supply, are all favorable.
Hydrogen has a lot of problems as a light vehicle energy carrier. Not the least of which being that it requires >2x more energy per mile vs battery electric. What benefit would there be for someone with a BEV to transition to a FCEV? Pay ~2x more for H2 to save ~5 minutes refueling when on a road trip?
 

TurboABA

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Both BEV and FCEV need to come down in price before the masses jump onto the "trend".
Electricity still needs to be generated, and there's not enough renewable available at the moment to do so, thus we would still need "dirty" fuels to generate the clean energy that the BEVs would need if we were all on that bandwagon.
 

turbobrick240

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China is already making some excellent EVs for under $20k. The BYD Dolphin is a prime example. BYD is a serious player too, Warren Buffett doesn't tend to throw money at risky ventures.

 

kjclow

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It's a hatchback so no one in North America will want it. :rolleyes:
 

turbobrick240

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The Model Y is a hatchback, and Tesla can't make those fast enough to satisfy US demand. So is the Prius, and Toyota managed to sell quite a few of those. I don't expect the Dolphin will make it over here anytime soon, but it makes the case that decent, cheap EVs are now on the world stage.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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The Y is sold as a CUV, not a hatchback. Maybe a minor distinction, but an important one to consumers. And anyone who buys a Prius already knows they're getting a weird vehicle.
 

turbobrick240

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Hatchbacks sell reasonably well here in rural Maine. I have two neighbors with ford focus hatchbacks, one with a Prius and another with a Fiat 500. I'll admit this region probably isn't representative of the nation as a whole. Saabs used to be everywhere up here, and I didn't see many of those outside of New England.
 

nwdiver

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Electricity still needs to be generated, and there's not enough renewable available at the moment to do so, thus we would still need "dirty" fuels to generate the clean energy that the BEVs would need if we were all on that bandwagon.
How does that not highlight the absurdity of FCEV which require nearly 3x more energy than BEVs?

How much renewable energy is enough? We added enough additional renewable energy in 2020 to fuel ~10M EVs. How much more renewable energy should we have before you think it would make sense to start adding EVs to the grid? We're curtailing more surplus renewable energy because it has no where to go than all the EVs we currently have can use. How much is 'enough'?
 

nicklockard

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Well, you know....let's let perfection be the enemy of way damned better...because we're stubborn and we like it!
 

TurboABA

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How much renewable energy is enough? We added enough additional renewable energy in 2020 to fuel ~10M EVs. How much more renewable energy should we have before you think it would make sense to start adding EVs to the grid? We're curtailing more surplus renewable energy because it has no where to go than all the EVs we currently have can use. How much is 'enough'?
Time-of-Use Winter Periods and Prices
Time-of-Use electricity prices change throughout each weekday, when demand is on-peak from 7am to 11am and 5pm to 7pm, mid-peak from 11am to 5pm, and off-peak from 7pm to 7am.
So wait....
- my utility supplier charges me time of use rates where "off-peak" is less than 1/2 of "on-peak" rate.... awesome incentive to "use more electricity".
- in the summer, when we get hit with a heat-wave, there's power outages and citizens are told to limit the use of their A/C as the grid can't keep up with supply...
That sure sounds like there's tons of extra electricity available for me ....... I should get a pile of EVs to recharge off the grid at these times too!

Both of these scenarios also happen during the daytime.... remind me again, when does solar generate power? Was it at night or during the day? Can't recall.
 

turbobrick240

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A majority of curtailment of excess electricity production happens at night during off peak hours. And it's excess wind energy for the most part. Since the vast majority of EV charging can be done during these off peak hours, EVs and renewables compliment each other quite nicely. If we had started to wean ourselves off fossil fuels 30 years ago, I doubt we'd be hearing about scores of Canadians dying in heat waves. But better late than never.
 

TurboABA

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Well, realistically, our issue is storage not generation.... as you've mentioned, if we could actually manage to "bank" this excess production during off-peak to use when we actually need it, we wouldn't be having these arguments. I do agree that we "should" already be there, but we are not... and the current infrastructure doesn't make it easy regardless of what excess we have when no one needs it (or wants to use it).
 

kjclow

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Or when someone in California wants it but it's being captured in Idaho.
 

wxman

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Hopefully, some of that excess electricity generation capacity can be used to produce and store the energy as "efuels." At least one company, Prometheus Fuels, is about to produce efuels (CO2-to-fuels) commercially.

Synthetic Fischer-Tropsch efuels (jet fuel, diesel fuel and naphtha) can be carbon NEGATIVE if 100% renewable electricity is used and the processing system is appropriately configured.
 

TurboABA

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Just look at my local clowns.....

Instead of having this problem, why not just tell consumers that during off-peak hours (or whenever) they can just have free electricity.... I'm sure lots of us would just shut down our furnaces and heat up our homes with electric fireplaces\heaters during the winter for example.... that should put a dent in the "excess".
 

nwdiver

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Just look at my local clowns.....

Instead of having this problem, why not just tell consumers that during off-peak hours (or whenever) they can just have free electricity.... I'm sure lots of us would just shut down our furnaces and heat up our homes with electric fireplaces\heaters during the winter for example.... that should put a dent in the "excess".
??? Is that not an indication that we have 'enough' clean energy for EVs? A fleet of EVs is far easier for the grid operator to control than a bunch of electric furnaces. You can signal a car to soak up ~20kWh and wait until 2am do to it. Can't really let a house cool down to 50F until 2am then heat it up to 90F.

I 100% agree we should be using some of that surplus to make Hydrogen. Problem is there's over a dozen things that use Hydrogen and make a lot more sense than FCEVs. So even once we're making BILLIONS of ton/yr of H2 with surplus clean energy it's still going to be decades before there's enough surplus H2 that FCEVs would make any sense.

 
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TurboABA

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All I'm saying is that there's timers that can be set so that my electric fireplace (for the sake of using the same scenario) kicks in at 2am, and even if that just keeps my house warm until 7am when my peak rate starts (aka demand) with FREE heating, that will use up A LOT of extra energy that would otherwise need to be "exported" etc. It would also reduce emissions from all the natural gas burning that wouldn't happen, etc. In the remote\northern areas that are not even that far from the populated sections, people use very high cost oil\wood\propane fuel to try to keep warm.... I bet they would also put a massive dent in the oversupply if they were using electric heaters........

Hell.... imagine all of us who have to shovel\snowblow our driveways... if we got free electricity during whatever period, we'd all run driveway heaters and never have to worry about clearing snow again.....

There's far too many politics involved which are the real problem..... there's ways and solutions to address these things, but there's far too much profit to be lost by the elite, so the rest of us minions are only presented with "part of the problem", etc.
 

nwdiver

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All I'm saying is that there's timers that can be set so that my electric fireplace (for the sake of using the same scenario) kicks in at 2am, and even if that just keeps my house warm until 7am when my peak rate starts (aka demand) with FREE heating, that will use up A LOT of extra energy that would otherwise need to be "exported" etc. It would also reduce emissions from all the natural gas burning that wouldn't happen, etc. In the remote\northern areas that are not even that far from the populated sections, people use very high cost oil\wood\propane fuel to try to keep warm.... I bet they would also put a massive dent in the oversupply if they were using electric heaters........

Hell.... imagine all of us who have to shovel\snowblow our driveways... if we got free electricity during whatever period, we'd all run driveway heaters and never have to worry about clearing snow again.....

There's far too many politics involved which are the real problem..... there's ways and solutions to address these things, but there's far too much profit to be lost by the elite, so the rest of us minions are only presented with "part of the problem", etc.
All I'm saying is that we clearly have enough clean energy to get serious about converting ICE to electric.
 

turbobrick240

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We've got the surplus clean energy, we've got a massive infrastructure bill to fund grid improvements, and we're about to get more substantial EV incentives. No more excuses, let's go!
 

nicklockard

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Demand-side management is the key. It's a shame that I can't find a reasonably priced smart demand (inside my home) load controller. I should be able to assign priorities and times of use to certain appliances, with 'soft' or smart shutdown modes so that the equipment isn't fully off, just in standby. And no, I'm not going to spend umpteen thousands of dollars on smart appliances. It'd pay off in ...never.

Our dumb power grids are at their limit. Adding more is kinda pointless until we get smart about load management. (It's the wires and other infrastructure guys)
 

nwdiver

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Demand-side management is the key. It's a shame that I can't find a reasonably priced smart demand (inside my home) load controller. I should be able to assign priorities and times of use to certain appliances, with 'soft' or smart shutdown modes so that the equipment isn't fully off, just in standby. And no, I'm not going to spend umpteen thousands of dollars on smart appliances. It'd pay off in ...never.

Our dumb power grids are at their limit. Adding more is kinda pointless until we get smart about load management. (It's the wires and other infrastructure guys)
Heat pump water heaters are on sale at HD this week. They can be programmed for demand response. And the fact they're heat pumps means they can reduce annual electric use by >3,000kWh/yr. That alone will pay for it in < 4 years. Basically like getting ~9,000 free EV miles/yr.


So many options now... this energy 'crisis' is the equivalent of being thirsty floating in a clean fresh water lake..... it's just absurd.
 

tikal

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Road trips are going to be bumpy in the next few years for non-Tesla EVs:

"During the Thanksgiving holidays we took the ID4 on a trip from north central Arkansas to Houston, Texas. The ride in the ID4 was outstanding. We traveled from temperatures in the low 30's to temperatures in the low 70's. Encountered rain and some heavy winds, but neither affected the ID4. Got lots of looks most everywhere we went and some inquiries. Before leaving I plotted the Electrify America charging stations and entered them into the car’s GPS. The GPS is the pits. My old Garmin is better. Sometimes it can not find a location unless you are about 40 miles away. And sometimes the voice command does not work. The only downer in the trip is using the Electrify America chargers. A couple just did not work and couple of others charged very slow and I had to move to another. Most did not charge anywhere near as fast as they should. When I am at home and can charge at my leisure it makes no difference how long it takes, but on a road trip it takes way to long to charge! The Achilles heel of the ID4 is the charging situation. I feel if VW and Electrify America do not correct these issues, sales will be hurt, especially for potential buyers who charge a lot on the road. The ID4 still has glitches that show up every so often, but generally they do not deter from the driving experience. I am looking with interest at the Ioniq 5 and the Genesis GV60."

(source)
 

turbobrick240

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The charging situation should improve immensely once Tesla opens up the Supercharger network to the other manufacturers. I think that may happen next year.
 

tikal

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That will be interesting to see unfold, specially what price will Tesla charge non-Tesla users.
 
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