real world EVs review

[IndigoBlueWagon]

We've sold nearly 400 timing belt kits for '10-'14 4 cylinder TDIs so far this year, so there are some out there.

 

[kjclow]

Coming through the Blue Ridge mountains last week, I passed a model 3 pulling a pop up camper. I wanted to slow down and follow him to see how often he was stopping to charge but wanted to get home more. The camper was about two feet wider and a foot or so taller than the car and I don't remember seeing any type of towing mirror. No way for him to know what's coming up behind him.

 

[oilhammer]

I'm doing a timing belt on a 352k mile 2004 TDI today.

And a thermostat (and other things) on a 518k mile 2011 TDI.

Completed an oil cooler job on a 175k mile 2014 T'reg TDI yesterday.

Three more here awaiting various things.

So yeah, plenty here.

 

[Daemon64]

The whole tipping point and luxury for the wealthy is my thinking at this point.

I was doing some math the other day and came to the conclusion that basically a gas vehicle that can get around X threshold is currently more environmentally friendly than an EV.

In mass which is lower in CO2 output than the US grid its .992 lbs of CO2 / kilowatt hour so depending on the EV lets say the P2 which is a fairly efficient in EV terms averaging 95MPGE / hwy which is 355 watts /mi, the P2 produces 159.74 g/CO2 per mile.

Gas Vehicle highway efficiency needed to Produce only 159.74 g/mi ( 20lbs of CO2 in 1 gallon of gasoline, 453.592 grams in a pound ) -- 57 MPG -- This comes out to 159.16 g/mi -- Prius comes pretty close at 53MPG EPA highway rating. Prius if added small turbo, & plasma spark could likely get there or better.

Diesel Vehicle Efficiency needed to Produce only 159.74 g/mi ( 22.45lbs of CO2 in 1 gallon of diesel, 453.592 grams in a pound ) -- 64 MPG -- This comes out to 159.12 g/mi of CO2

Carbon capture Synthetic fuels have a lifecycle reduction of 85% end to end emissions. --- A current diesel vehicle could get 9.56 MPG and be at the same emissions as the P2 -- More realistically say a Golf TDI would be at around 40 MPG we'll say which we know is LOW for that car, thats 38 net gain grams of co2 / mi

Like I just don't understand, we could get better emissions than electrics if the right technologies were implemented on gas and diesel vehicles, and on top of that carbon capture synythetic fuels, and we 100% beat electrics with existing vehicle stock by large swaths

*edited to account for trucks*

Rivian R1T BEST rating is 74MPGE highway and worst is 60 MPGE highway --- ( 455.5 Wh/mi to 561.8 Wh/mi or 204.96 g/mi to 252.79 g/mi ) --

So pickup truck equiv in gas 44.26 MPG -- 35.89 MPG
Pickup truck equiv in diesel 49.68 MPG -- 40.28 MPG

Hummer EV gets WAY worse than Rivian

So maybe the answer is: Raise the standards for vehicles in Gas / Diesel applications and be done with it. The whole "this might make the truck more expensive"... like it CANT be more expensive than producing an EV and selling that to consumers.

 

[jmodge]

The camper is a great place to keep a generator.

And diesel to run it, unless you prefer coal

BEEEA59E-A34D-4466-8269-BB386BE34D57.jpeg

Clean power

forums.tdiclub.com

 

[oilhammer]

..... [bunch of smart stuff]...

So maybe the answer is: Raise the standards for vehicles in Gas / Diesel applications and be done with it. The whole "this might make the truck more expensive"... like it CANT be more expensive than producing an EV and selling that to consumers.

Or, perhaps the answer needs a different question: Why do Americans still predominantly buy large inefficient vehicles? You can legislate all you want, if people won't buy them, then.... ???

 

[Daemon64]

Or, perhaps the answer needs a different question: Why do Americans still predominantly buy large inefficient vehicles? You can legislate all you want, if people won't buy them, then.... ???

Cafe standards is the answer.

Manufacturers have an incentive to make bigger vehicles. If those were universal standards it'd go the other way.

This guy breaks it down really well:

 

[oilhammer]

I still say it boils down to consumers (and we are also the same folks that are voters, so.... ). We DO (did) have a choice. We've made poor ones, including legislating ourselves into overpriced overcomplicated thirsty nonsense.

What I find silly too is now that little off road vehicles are all gone (CJ5, Samurai, Rocky, stuff like that) now people are turning to spending $15-25k on these UTVs and driving them around on public roads. Not only do these not have nearly as strict of emissions standards, but they have very little safety standards as compared to a car. And then the fact that they are not licensed, so... are they insured? If someone plows into my Golf with their new 100+hp Polaris Ranger, they are going to do some serious damage (and probably all be dead).

We also now have the new thing of OBD test dodging in my area... the wonderful "historic vehicle" plates. Yep, OBD2 compliant cars can now be "classics", and once you get that plate, it is essentially permanent, and that vehicle isn't subjected to OBD testing ever again, and for that matter, no safety inspections either!

So that clapped out, rusted, oil burning POS 1997 Suburban can motor on in perpetuity with parts falling off and puddles of juices everywhere it parks.

People make poor choices.

People won't let themselves be policed more than they have to.

I am pissed that I cannot buy a single new diesel passenger car, and hardly any small cars period, yet I can buy as many pump-sucking new pickups as I please. And now I can slap historic plates on my [rarely driven] workhorse F-trucks because they are 25+ years old.

(but we should crush all those nasty 50 MPG "dirty" diesels!)

I'll watch the video later (when I have sound), thanks for the link. However, I still think that if consumers were buying up every single cab long bed compact truck they made back when they sold them here, and the larger ones sat and gathered dust, we'd still be able to buy them. EPA or not. Consumers did that. Ford didn't ax the Fiesta and Focus because people were buying them. Chevy didn't ax the Sonic and Cruze because people were buying them. And all these miserable ugly awful to drive crossdresser things wouldn't be all over the damn place if people were NOT buying them (seriously, look at some manufacturers' lineups now.... that's just about all it is... crossdressers).,

 

[oilhammer]

Well I'm fat, and I can get in and out of my small cars just fine... and since I don't crash, that's not an issue either.

Besides, a Freightliner Cascadia pulling a 53' trailer collides with a Yukon. Who wins?

There's always a bigger fish. Do the laws of physics differ in Europe, where the Golf and Focus and smaller vehicles sell well?

I'm betting better driver education helps.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

The desire for big vehicles and trucks isn't limited to women. My son is a carpenter, and recently one of the subs at the house he's building looked at his JSW and said "I hate those little cars." Everyone on his job except for another carpenter (who has a 2.5l Golf) drives a truck. And none of them are close to the job site: My son drives over 100 miles a day. He was upset about the loss in FE going to a MK6 from his ALH Golf, and can't imagine driving a vehicle that gets FE in the teens.

He doesn't understand it: these guys aren't rich and their trucks are making them broke. And his tools are safe and dry in the JSW.

 

[gmenounos]

the P2 which is a fairly efficient in EV terms averaging 95MPGE / hwy which is 355 watts /mi

I guess I should stop driving like a grandma.

Gas Vehicle highway efficiency needed to Produce only 159.74 g/mi ( 20lbs of CO2 in 1 gallon of gasoline, 453.592 grams in a pound ) -- 57 MPG -- This comes out to 159.16 g/mi -- Prius comes pretty close at 53MPG EPA highway rating.

And it's very difficult to build an ICE vehicle that is that efficient and that people also want to buy, at least in the US.

Prius if added small turbo, & plasma spark could likely get there or better.

Which would make the Rube Goldberg hybrid power train even more complex, thus more expensive to buy and more expensive to service (good for @oilhammer but not for the car owner).

 

[Abacus]

When a Mini Cooper collides with a Yukon, who wins, or more aptly, who loses the most?

I can answer that question. I was driving into work one day and saw a head-on collision between a mini Cooper and a full-size Silverado pick up truck. I was only able to see the front of the truck. Which was completely and utterly destroyed, with the engine not in its correct place. Seeing the other vehicle was a mini Cooper, I cringed at the thought of seeing the front, but when I drove around it, it looked like the mini Cooper could still be driven home. I was impressed that the damage the mini Cooper did to that full-size truck, so my money is on the mini Cooper

 

[kjclow]

It's all in the crumple and crush zones. If you can protect the passenger compartment, all else can be sacrificed.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

This morning I happened to see a major accident on the limited access highway I use daily. Three or 4 cars in the accident. Two of the were CUVs of some sort, not readily identifiable. The third car was a Smart Car. The CUVs were damaged enough that I couldn't identify what they were. The Smart was not nearly as seriously damaged.

One person dead after multi-car crash in Weymouth - Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

WEYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - A man died Friday after a multi-car crash on Route 3 in Weymouth, state police said. The crash happened shortly after 5<a class="excerpt-read-more" href="https://whdh.com/news/one-person-dead-after-multi-car-crash-in-weymouth/">Read More</a>

whdh.com

This caused me to recall at Top Gear episode where they smashed a Smart Car into a concrete barrier. The structure remained intact and protected the passenger compartment, but data gathered from the collision indicated the driver would have most likely died because of the sudden decelleration. You can have a strong vehicle, but if it doesn't have an adequate crumple zone it could kill you regardless.

 

[Bradm]

Meaningless, because nobody lives their life a quarter mile at a time.

Only Dom does

 

[Daemon64]

View attachment 133495

I guess I should stop driving like a grandma.



And it's very difficult to build an ICE vehicle that is that efficient and that people also want to buy, at least in the US.



Which would make the Rube Goldberg hybrid power train even more complex, thus more expensive to buy and more expensive to service (good for @oilhammer but not for the car owner).

This largely depends on intended use. If you do a ton of like 65 and below driving in an EV you can get crazy numbers. Like that's a really good use case for such a vehicle. But it's highway that matters to the majority of people for the majority of their miles and that's when efficiency is hurt in regards to EVs. The P2 can get those types of efficiency numbers but not with an average of faster driving.

Prius hybrid powertrain has been around forever is and is VERY reliable, small turbocharged engines have been around forever and are very reliable. The only "new" thing in that equation is plasma spark. Hybrids with turbo engines are nothing new.

Making efficient gas cars that sell is not difficult their just more expensive, but they cannot be more expensive than an equivalent EV... just saying

On that point my 6spd golf tdi could and would easily get 45MPG. How much better would that mileage have been with a ZF 8spd, instead of say a 6spd DSG or man like i had. What about the achates power OP engine running diesel which in terms of efficiency should walk away from the VAG 2.0....


The same achates power motor was shown in diesel to be north of 47MPG on an F150 -- That would put it in the range of an electric in terms of CO2. The sparkless gas variant would also be inline.

The problem with saying it can't be done is that it CAN. The engines from chevy say the LS, or VAG 2.0 or etc.. are iterative only. Whereas the achates power takes older technology that was abandoned and sets much newer processes against it, and is able to effectively dramatically increase its orig efficiency, the samething is true of the plasma ignition...

 

[oilhammer]

The Prius powertrain has NOT been around that long, as it keeps changing... dramatically. Like, every single part. And as they age, they're reliability goes down significantly. We work on a LOT of Toyota hybrids here. Batteries, inverters, coolant pumps, coolant valves, EGR coolers, catalysts, and of course engines.... Lots and lots of engines.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I've heard some Prius engines are prone to head gasket failure. Is that correct?

 

[oilhammer]

50/50 shot of the head gasket or the head cracked itself. The 2ZR-FXE, which is the hybrid version of the 2ZR-FE 1.8L. The non-hybrid versions don't do this. So something with the hybrid version causes it, and it is pretty common.

Luckily, Prius drivers crash a lot, and the cars rarely survive even a minor one (they are chintzy... I could probably total one with my bare hands). So there is a pretty constant supply of used lower mileage engines to swap in. The cost to replace the head is prohibitive, and usually they are burning oil like crazy by that point anyway, or have overheated enough that they will.

 

[Daemon64]

The Prius powertrain has NOT been around that long, as it keeps changing... dramatically. Like, every single part. And as they age, they're reliability goes down significantly. We work on a LOT of Toyota hybrids here. Batteries, inverters, coolant pumps, coolant valves, EGR coolers, catalysts, and of course engines.... Lots and lots of engines.

Strange -- I am not surprised that you see plenty of them with 2.5M of them sold in the US alone since inception. I mean its nowhere near the F150 but it has to be one of the more common cars on the road. I've only had anecdotal evidence of friends of friends, family members etc... owning them and never having issues in 200k+ miles which is pretty decent for a gas car.

I cannot speak to your shop experience and I have no doubts your experience is what it is. Just a misconception on my part I guess after I looked into the data... the issues appear to be more engine related like you mention which is really strange, you'd think they would have fixed that since that vehicle has been in the market since 2005

 

[El Dobro]

The EGR systems tend to clog up on the Gen 3 Prii.

 

[tikal]

So I read here from time to time about sales of EVs in California specifically "taking off" and that may be a sign of a "tipping point" for the rest of the continental USA. Ok, maybe...

Now how is the trend of building on-the-highway non-Tesla chargers in the remaining 47 continental US states?

Is it also trending upwards exponentially or even close?

 

[Daemon64]

So I read here from time to time about sales of EVs in California specifically "taking off" and that may be a sign of a "tipping point" for the rest of the continental USA. Ok, maybe...

Now how is the trend of building on-the-highway non-Tesla chargers in the remaining 47 continental US states?

Is it also trending upwards exponentially or even close?

Well not really, the answer for now is Tesla opening its network to everyone else. But like thats not going all that fast either. So right now non-tesla EV maybe in a worse state than a few months ago. More on the road, maybe a little more charges but the congestion on them hasn't lightened up, and might even be worse.... thats my anecdotal. But its one of those things that it will get worse before it gets better IMO.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I saw an amusing Boston TV news story late last week saying that someone was going to take over the non-operating EvGo chargers on the Mass Pike. The tease for the story included "and when they will be available for use." The reporter in the story said "we do not have a timetable for when these will be operating again." I guess it's not that amusing if you drive a non-Tesla EV on the Mass Pike.

They did say there are a grand total of 3 of them on the 130 miles of the Pike.

 

[turbobrick240]

Electrify America just opened a fast charging location at the Grand Canyon. Not quite as exciting as the typical Wal-Mart placement, but the Grand Canyon is kinda nice. Maybe they'll even maintain the chargers.

Electrify America opens 350-kw EV fast charger at Grand Canyon

The charging station includes six individual chargers with power rates up to 350 kw, and Tesla drivers don't have any nearby Supercharger option.

www.greencarreports.com

 

[Abacus]

Electrify America just opened a fast charging location at the Grand Canyon. Not quite as exciting as the typical Wal-Mart placement, but the Grand Canyon is kinda nice. Maybe they'll even maintain the chargers.

Electrify America opens 350-kw EV fast charger at Grand Canyon

The charging station includes six individual chargers with power rates up to 350 kw, and Tesla drivers don't have any nearby Supercharger option.

www.greencarreports.com

I read the article, and since the Grand Canyon is not too far away, something struck me as odd, "A trip to the Grand Canyon was previously challenging for many EVs. The South Rim is about 160 miles from Flagstaff, Arizona, the nearest large city, and there are few places to stop in between."

The maximum distance from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon (which is slightly above Tusayan) is 80 miles, not 160 miles. They are figuring someone in an EV traveling to there and then back again as the distance, which is not "from". I'm not sure why they can't just tell the truth and not embellish to make things look different from what they actually are, probably because it won't sound as impressive.

By the way, there were already Tesla chargers in Tusayan and have been since 2019. Tusayan is only 7 miles from the Grand Canyon so the article is much to do about nothing other than to make headlines.

If anyone makes it out west and wants to visit the Grand Canyon, I have a season pass and it never gets old. I even go biking up there in the winter on my fatbike.

 

[El Dobro]

Biden-Harris Administration Making $100 Million Available to Improve EV Charger Reliability | FHWA (dot.gov)

 

[oilhammer]

The only thing that seems to be "taking off" (as in, moving out) in Califailia is a bunch of businesses and retail stores. I don't look to them as a sign of something to strive for, although downtown STL does evidently have a nice homeless camp, complete with fecal piles and discarded drug needles.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Despite the anecdotal accounts of "everyone is leaving California", the immigrants keep coming and have helped make California something like the world's 5th largest economy.

As for St.Louis, it's been a disaster for decades- I used to work for Continental Baking which was owned for a while by Ralston Purina in St.Louis and made a few business trips there. The corporate office was a fenced compound with it's own security and the bakery on the north side was about the only legal business left in the neighborhood. Had to stop downtown once and couldn't find a working parking meter to take my coins. Now that I'm retired I drove through St.Louis a couple times a year on the way from MN to FL and back, St.Loius is improving but it's telling that the traffic is lighter going through the city than on the ring roads going through the suburbs. Strangely enough the area around the old bakery on North Broadway had changed for the better, the demand for warehouse space has revived that old industrial area with it's access to rail and the river.

 

[turbobrick240]

Jay Leno recently had a chance to test drive a Tesla Semi (even hitched onto a load), and came away very impressed.