[QUOTE=Fahrer;15933912]Ok, yes we all know what a Prius is...
My fault for trying to add a term to what Toyota did.
For all intents and purposes the Prius was more or less the first popular car to introduce any type of electric charge to the general population.
I am speaking in contemporary terms from very recent history 1997 forward.

 

Jalopnik chimed in on the Lightyear today

https://jalopnik.com/the-lightyear-o...e-w-1835853011

 

Awesome. Overall very well balanced IMO; recognized the positives while appropriately dialing back the hype. I do think they were maybe more charitable than they should have been in a couple areas...taking them at their word on a 450 mile range, for example. But generally a good rundown. And I have to say I really enjoyed their conclusion paragraph, which echos a lot of what I said above:

Most experts agree it makes more sense to charge a battery-powered EV from stationary solar cells on a house or building, and operate a sun-powered car that way. Dragging the cells with you everywhere has some cool tech appeal, but current technology means they’re just not going to do you much good, will be useless at least half of every day, and can get dirty or damaged.

Really think that pretty much says it all.

 

Well, no. EVs have an extremely long history, and the Prius has very little to do with it. I would even say Toyota's experiment with the RAV4 EV was a more important contribution.

Your original assertion was that FCV would be the "eventual winner." They need to sell them profitably for that to happen. There are a number of good reasons to think that simply won't ever happen.

Well it's an advantage for sure. But I don't see how it's "unfair" exactly...it's an inherent barrier to FCVs ever being widely adopted, which seems to me to be a completely fair point to bring up. Also, to get somewhat more technical: it is inherently energy-intensive to reform hydrogen, and currently dominant methods are also hugely carbon intensive. Transportation and storage are also currently energy inefficient and carbon intensive. If you're going to have a car that isn't efficient and releases tons of carbon, why not just stick with gas?

This is the ultimate problem with FCV: it doesn't actually solve any problems.

How green is that? Much less green than just using the wind-generated electricity to charge batteries.

Yes, those 40 filling stations can fill any of the 4 FCV models on sale today. Somehow I find that...underwhelming. I do agree that standardizing EV charging stations should be a top goal for the industry. Ideally they'd just make all the non-Tesla EVs able to charge on the supercharger network, since it's ubiquitous and fast. Compared to the problems with FCVs (some of which are inherent and simply won't ever be fixed) this seems like a small coordination problem.

Well...ok, I guess. I mean you are the one who originally posed it as a competition for transportation dominance when you said FCV would be the eventual winner. But yes, it is true that no current EVs can recharge in 3 minutes. Tesla has however demonstrated a robotic battery-swap station that operated in 90 seconds, so it's not impossible...just a matter of engineering. Meanwhile hydrogen will never be as efficient or cost effective as grid electricity.

It's a little hard to pin down, and it depends on what counts as "popular." But probably in the 1880s or 1890s. Also, I disagree that my comparisons have been unfair; they have all been geared to pointing out the myriad reasons that FCVs will not overtake EVs and become the dominant transportation technology. There are inherent problems that aren't going to be solved with more engineering. Not pointing them out would be debate malpractice.

Well, if we go with 1890, the bet becomes a bit...unwieldy. Maybe we say the first popular EV in modern times (i.e. after gas cars became dominant). That would probably be the Model S in 2013, making the contest-year 2025. You could make a case for it being the Tesla Roadster (at 2450 units, hard to say it was "popular" if you don't think 5000 Marais is popular) which would make the contest year 2030.

Either of those years is fine with me. There will be more EVs on the road than FCVs in both of those years. And also in every year before or after. I did after all offer you a choice of "any future year" and I stand by that. There will never be a year where there are more FCVs than EVs, full stop. In other words, FCVs will not be the eventual winner.

Sure.

 

Porsche: Expect sports cars to change more in the

next seven years than they did in the last 70

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/28/pors...orts-cars.html

The Prius isn't the only 4 cylinder hybrid out there any more.

 

Holy schmokes - the changes are already massive.

 

When recharge times for 300 miles of range take 5 minutes or less, and recharge stations capable of that charge rate are 75% as plentiful as self-service gas stations, I will consider a total electric car. Not until then.

 

Anyone with experience with lithium ion batteries knows that an old battery with an indicated 95% charge will drain more quickly to an indicated 30% charge level than a new battery will drain from an indicated 95% to 30%.

 

Y'all aren't paying attention.... did you see the inside of the Taycan video ????

Suddenly everything else is outdated.

 

Or everything is the same and someone that wants to drive a noiseless video game can have one.

 

My take on the reliability quotient is that we won't see an improvement in overall reliability. Almost all older Tesla's have had their motors replaced. It's really about the number of complex components in a machine. One of those complicated components will have an design flaw. And that major system will be THAT car's Achilles heel. To the OP's point, it won't be an IMS or bore scoring.

 

So because there were issues* with one component of the earliest versions of the earliest pioneer of EVs, that means there will never be any reliability gains from a drastically simpler drivetrain? You kind of undermine your own point here. You say "It's really about the number of complex components in a machine." But the entire argument for EVs being lower-maintenance is that they have vastly fewer complex components. The transmission is single-speed, there's no oil system, or fuel system, or belt-driven accessories. The motor has one moving part. Sure, there have been predictable quality issues in the early days of this technology...but the overall reliability already compares favorably, and we should absolutely expect maturation of the platform to improve things even more.

*(Also, I'm not entirely sure I buy your assertion that "almost all" early Tesla's needed new motors. But that's not that important...even if true, it doesn't mean what you say.)

 

Quite possibly. Still, 100% do not want.

 

I do think Tesla gets the benefit of the doubt for early motor failures. I do see how it may have seemed that I undermined my own point.

Let me attempt to state my thoughts on this a bit more clearly. I don't think that EV's are any less complex than their combustion counterparts. A golf cart is, but a Tesla or Taycan is not.

If you've ever been to a Tesla store and seen the skeleton rolling chassis on the showroom floor, it looks beautifully simple. But that's not what it looks like in real life. The high voltage control systems, water cooling for the battery and motors, not to mention the electronics and all of the now electrified accessories (water pumps, power steering, a/c,cooling, etc). If you haven't had the chance, watch a few episodes of Rich Rebuilds on YouTube and look at the maze of modern automotive complexity under the hood of those Tesla's.

So, while the motor is simpler, and will require zero maintenance, the support systems that control that motor are new added complexity to a degree.

The real irony of my comments is that the title of this thread is about bore scoring and IMS failures. Irony because modern autos have largely made engine and transmission failures a thing of the past. Save for IMS and bore scoring in the cars we like.

 

I recognize and appreciate your revised point. And I definitely appreciate the irony you note at the end there. But still and all...sure, there are lots of complex systems keeping the battery and motor happy in a modern EV, but they sort of pale in comparison to the explosion of sensors and computers added to current issue gas cars. If you wanted to compare a current EV to a 930 or something, you might get somewhere...but the level of fancy computing happening in a 992 is just as high as a Tesla or a Taycan. And then it has mechanical complexity orders of magnitude higher.

But ultimately we're having a silly discussion. Reliability and maintenance requirements are empirically testable things. It's reaaally hard to filter out everybody's bias, but even not-obviously-friendly outlets like Forbes are saying EVs are cheaper to own than similar-market gassers. Since EVs in their modern form are pretty new, and since gas vehicles have had ~100 years of refinement, it seems incredibly likely that as time wears on EVs will continue to improve on that comparison. Your original proposition, that the rise of EVs would not improve reliability, strikes me as a poor forecast in light of all that.