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You only think it's not viable... but it is. There are ample charging locations available in your neck of the woods. The orange ones are Tesla superchargers which are capable of adding ~100 miles of range in 15 minutes. More than enough to get you back to your garage where you'll charge overnight and wake up to a "full tank".
Super helpful!
But still not viable. I can't leave the house earlier to stop and charge once or twice on my drive. I already leave the house at 330-4 am. 😴
I have my doubts about the electric car industry in the near term also. My degree was Metalurgical Engineering and Materials Science. We had working hydrogen fuel cells back then and thought they would be the future. After all, hydrogen is plentiful, easily extracted from water and can be refuelled to allow unlimited range. Yes there is a net negative energy loss but it is managable, especially with renewables today. 25 years have passed and from a practical perspective you still can't buy a hydrogen fuel cell car, nor is hydrogen fuel cell used commercially at any significant scale.
Battery tech has not seen any massive changes in years, but there are incremental changes. There are still four primary commercially viable types of rechargable batteries. Renewables and the need to overcome the duck curve have driven new interest here but it takes a long time to bring this tech to commercial viability. There is hope for a breakthrough, but batteries have been around a long time.
The intersting commercial tech that I haven't seen catch on is ICE with electric final drive and maybe the dynamics which result in higher efficiency on rails or at seas don't work on the road in start-stop conditions. Trains and ships all use electric final drive off an ICE and are far more efficient when they do, but they rarely stop. There is some interesting work going on with ICE for electric generation in other applications.
While I haven't driven any pure electric vehicles I wouldn't buy one for where I live right now. The distances are too great between places. Here is a sampling of some of the places I would be likely to go on a weekend in the next year and whether an electric car could be used for the trip without planned charging stops.
Denver to Santa Fe nope
Denver to Moab nope
Denver to Ouray nope
Denver to Park City nope
Denver to Tahoe nope
To in-laws ranch? barely yes to, round trip, no
To parents home? Yes
Denver to Cheyenne RT? yes barely if you drive very efficiently on new batteries and the winds aren't too high
Denver to Breckenridge RT yes
Denver to Vail RT? MAYBE if you drive very efficiently on new batteries.
Denver to Avon RT no
While I do own a second car that can reach all those places, I don't want to own a car that can't.
My wife, who dislikes driving in general, likes high torque turbo cars, dislikes putting gas in her car and commutes 1.5 miles to work, could be pretty happy with an electric for her vehicle.
While I think the electric car would be perfectly suitable for the average sedentary American, the range limitations just don't work for me. I have no interest in waiting an hour after every three hours driving to refuel. It's not that I like causing environmental damage. I would probably consider a hybrid 992 if I could afford it and it didn't turn the car into something that only the dealer could maintain.
To those who say, what would the oil companies do when fuel and lubricants aren't needed? They'll keep making plastic precursors. These electric cars are full of them as are almost all parts of our lives. And there are still lubricants in electric cars, just as there are in my bicycles. Some light oils and greases are needed to make the drivetrain last. There will just be less, and I think that is fine.
I can imagine when people were comparing the first cars to the horse and having these same arguments. Our gasoline distribution network wasn't built overnight. Barring a human caused cataclysmic event, I think this technological change is likely to occur. Range will continue to improve and maybe we will find some breakthroughs on the electrical storage front.
I own a model X and a 997 C4s and i will some it up to this .... as a daily driver with family and all the 9 to 5 shlepping the model X is great and the no gas thing makes perfect sense...
When i actually want to drive for pleasure the 911 all the way and at the same time i am not trashing my 911 on ****ty downtown roads and continually stuck in traffic idling going nowhere ... The Tesla is perfect for that enviroment ....
Has anyone here taken a seriously long road trip in a Tesla? Let's say a thousand miles plus and away from the coasts. Dallas to PHX. MPLS to Seattle. Chicago to LA. If so, that's the kind of trip I'd want to take in an EV - see friends, family, etc. How feasible are such long trips with current / near future technology?
BTW, whoever posted that Plug Share map. Awesome. Thanks.
High speed milk float heavy as f**k, lets see it beat me on a country lane peice of ****, makes me laugh, electric car in uk comes mainly from coal fired power station , dead eco lol
..After all, hydrogen is plentiful, easily extracted from water and can be refuelled to allow unlimited range. Yes there is a net negative energy loss but it is managable, especially with renewables today. 25 years have passed and from a practical perspective you still can't buy a hydrogen fuel cell car, nor is hydrogen fuel cell used commercially at any significant scale.
...
To my knowledge, almost all hydrogen is still produced on an industrial scale from steam reforming of natural gas.
You only think it's not viable... but it is. There are ample charging locations available in your neck of the woods. The orange ones are Tesla superchargers which are capable of adding ~100 miles of range in 15 minutes. More than enough to get you back to your garage where you'll charge overnight and wake up to a "full tank".
"Cool"....as long as you travel the routes that Tesla wants you to travel on..... sounds like Apple products....also cool but limited compared to PCs.
Has anyone here taken a seriously long road trip in a Tesla? Let's say a thousand miles plus and away from the coasts. Dallas to PHX. MPLS to Seattle. Chicago to LA. If so, that's the kind of trip I'd want to take in an EV - see friends, family, etc. How feasible are such long trips with current / near future technology?
BTW, whoever posted that Plug Share map. Awesome. Thanks.
T
I haven't taken a trip that long in my Model 3 as of yet but there's an excellent trip planning site that'll help you determine where to stop to charge (and for how long):
It's detailed enough to take speed limits and elevation changes into consideration along your route. You can also specify how low you're willing to drain the battery between charging stops and how much target charge you want remaining when you reach your destination.
The Tesla's built-in navigation computer is similar. It will plan your route via Supercharger locations. Supercharging stops are usually pretty short - typically 10 or 15 minutes.
Plugshare is good for finding Level 2 chargers in and around home/work. These locations are probably more useful for folks with EVs that have shorter range (like a Nissan Leaf or a Fiat 500) and need more frequent stops during the "daily grind". With a ~300 mile range, I pretty much never need to use them with the Tesla. The car easily covers day trips from my home in Orange County to San Diego and back (roughly 200 miles). When I get home, I simply plug it in and wake up to a full charge the next morning. Also, the cost of the electricity consumed is about 1/3 to 1/4 that of what I would have paid in gas in a similar car.
Tesla will not supply parts for any of their cars. You must take the vehicle in for service or any repairs. Unless you find a salvaged car and pick out the part you need. bummer!
"Cool"....as long as you travel the routes that Tesla wants you to travel on..... sounds like Apple products....also cool but limited compared to PCs.
Planned/restricted journeys.
Originally Posted by quazimoto
Tesla will not supply parts for any of their cars. You must take the vehicle in for service or any repairs. Unless you find a salvaged car and pick out the part you need. bummer!
Such cars will not be on the road in 30 years the same way 30 year-old (and older) classics are today.
1 - Any new technology has to compete with the old .... the old in this case has been under constant refinement for over 100 years.... a tough hurdle. The first steam locomotives had to be pulled up hills using teams of horses. Many did not think the technology would surpass horses. Electric technology has only recently started the cost decline...... I read in the Economist how electric cars will be both cheaper buy and own than current gasoline cars. Electric cars will happen and internal combustion engines will die ..... only issue is how long will it take.
2- My friend's first Tesla ..... only maintenance was brakes. That is it. Literally nothing else. Their batteries are lasting way longer than predicted. But again, we are on the early rise of this technology... in 10 years, everything including disposal, maintenance, whatever will look completely different.... on no one is predicting it will get worse.
3 - While the software is way complex, the car overall is way less complex than internal combustion engines and systems..... way less. Less complex systems are more robust and less failure prone.... just the way the universe works.
4. Air travel had to be subsidized (actually supported) by governments via regulation and protection from competition until air frames and engines were designed to be efficient and cary enough passengers economically. The visionaries saw the potential..... until the tech was up to snuff, many said "no way".
5. Whether you like or dislike the existing selection of electric cars is irrelevant. Your opinion does not matter..... the technology that will drive down the costs and up the convenience will drive the market... with the hand of governments nudging them along. The cars and companies that break through ... well they arent around or havent done it yet. The future will look very different. I said I have no desire to own that Tesla even with 2.5 0-60.... because I just don;t like the car. But again, if someone produced a sports car that can go 300 miles etc. etc. etc. and they will..... then I will probably do it.
6. I grew up in a union town..... we voted for any politician (usually Democrats) who supported us. It was all about protections etc. No union, or politician, or anyone is going to stop the job loss from electric cars. Anyone or group that tries to stop or slow it will be hurting the USA in the long run to foreign companies (that were assisted by their governments). We should be behind this.... it will happen. But for working Americans, regardless of stopping it or not, no matter, a hard rain is gonna fall.
7. Full employement... the fuzz of the numbers.... in every transition, real humans suffer. Farmers suffered, blue collar workers... etc...
Peace
Bruce in Philly
Last edited by Bruce In Philly; 01-02-2019 at 05:15 PM.
I haven't taken a trip that long in my Model 3 as of yet but there's an excellent trip planning site that'll help you determine where to stop to charge (and for how long):
It's detailed enough to take speed limits and elevation changes into consideration along your route. You can also specify how low you're willing to drain the battery between charging stops and how much target charge you want remaining when you reach your destination.
The Tesla's built-in navigation computer is similar. It will plan your route via Supercharger locations. Supercharging stops are usually pretty short - typically 10 or 15 minutes.
Plugshare is good for finding Level 2 chargers in and around home/work. These locations are probably more useful for folks with EVs that have shorter range (like a Nissan Leaf or a Fiat 500) and need more frequent stops during the "daily grind". With a ~300 mile range, I pretty much never need to use them with the Tesla. The car easily covers day trips from my home in Orange County to San Diego and back (roughly 200 miles). When I get home, I simply plug it in and wake up to a full charge the next morning. Also, the cost of the electricity consumed is about 1/3 to 1/4 that of what I would have paid in gas in a similar car.
... the car overall is way less complex than internal combustion engines and systems..... way less. Less complex systems are more robust and less failure prone.... just the way the universe works....
It only looks less complex at a macro level. When a tiny capacitor or a semiconductor junction blows in the inverter module or the massive controller, you will replace the modules. Simple operation perhaps, but tell me how much it will cost. Disposable tech comes to mind.
Originally Posted by Bruce In Philly
Coupla comments:
Whether you like or dislike the existing selection of electric cars is irrelevant. Your opinion does not matter..... the technology that will drive down the costs and up the convenience will drive the market... with the hand of governments nudging them along.
Why should the government nudge that change? It's not a free/open market. It is a planned economy and the examples of those do not bode well. In a free market the consumer's opinion matters. Products live or die based on consumer reaction. I guess not here... I bet those who nudge the market have some other ulterior motives.
Has anyone here taken a seriously long road trip in a Tesla? Let's say a thousand miles plus and away from the coasts. Dallas to PHX. MPLS to Seattle. Chicago to LA. If so, that's the kind of trip I'd want to take in an EV - see friends, family, etc. How feasible are such long trips with current / near future technology?
BTW, whoever posted that Plug Share map. Awesome. Thanks.
T
Here are a couple relevant articles from Jalopnik. It just doesn't sound like fun to me. NY to MI by Ryan Felton - the first long run Tesla article I'd read Electric reverse cannonball?
Not one person mentioned that electric cars don't have transmissions or cited the importance of being able to shift manually in a sports car. That is why the ICE is dead. If 85-100% of sports car buyers chose (demanded) manual gear boxes, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
01-02-2019, 01:37 PM
