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This was discussed here before, but as it’s buried I another thread I’ll cut and paste my response. I’ve owned an EV alongside my Porsche’s for the last 4 years. I’d find it nearly impossible to replace my GT3T, but if I was budget limited or could only have one car it might well be an EV at this point, so I partly disagree with Walter above.
WR: “If you ask me, driving a car is about getting in and going on an 800km trip, and electric cars can never be a solution to that." This statement is quite false here is the US- I did an 800km/ 500 mile day trip in my Model 3 a couple weeks ago and with 300+ mile range and 450 mph charging it was a complete non-event. However you must keep in mind how different Germany and the Autobahn makes the equation, which is naturally much of Walter's point of view.
One memorable trip comes to mind from my time in Germany. I went to visit a friend living in Frankfurt early one Saturday morning. I gassed my E46 M3 up leaving my house then took the unrestricted autobahn down. 152 miles door to door and I did it in 58 minutes. What limited my time wasn't the speed of the car, it was range. I came in on fumes, 4 miles remaining, and had to back off over the last 20 miles to actually make the distance.
The rate at which you're able to use power and fuel on the autobahn is staggering. A friend complained that he traded his Carrera for a Cayenne Turbo S and it slowed him down- the car was faster but the drop in range was enough that his point to point speed was compromised by stopping for more gas. Consider WR's statement in this light: covering 800km at full autobahn speeds (as I'm sure he would, traffic and route allowing) would likely mean at least three stops for recharging of a fast EV with a "nominal" 500 km range at normal speeds. At Supercharger charge rates that adds ~3 hours to a 3 hour trip. Less at 800 volts, but the man still has a point for his use case. And he's correct that in his lifetime that's not going to change.
I'm a huge fan of Walter's. Great guy, he's far more open and honest than he probably should be, and 99% of the time that makes him an ideal brand ambassador. The man can also drive the crap out of anything with wheels, as I had the pleasure of learning once upon a time on a snow covered rally course in Sweden. Mid drift:
Unfortunately Walter is not an engineer, and his environmental knowledge is limited. I'm very familiar with the impacts of EVs having been involved with some high efficiency race car design projects as well as both the Oil and Gas industry and Lithium mining. There are certainly issues with EVs, but nothing compared to Oil and Gas. Battery powered EVs are not a panacea, but their “well to wheels” energy use is a fraction of an ICE car, and overall they are on track to have far less impact than comparable alternatives.
I agree with Walter on the sound aspect, etc on the other hand. Hillclimbs are great for EVs, but watching Formula E is like watching paint dry compared to the old V8 or V10 era F1. And as fast and capable as EVs are (already nearly as fast as my GT3 for sprint distances, shortly massively faster) they will likely always struggle to provide 1/10th of the involvement of a 9000 rpm row your own RWD sports car. So the man makes some points, but he also misses.
That’s the best interview I’ve read yet on this subject !
The perspecitve of a true driver with more 1st hand internal knowledge of what’s really going on at Porsche than any of us could dream of.
Forget the all the data charts and speculation amongst the EV hopeful. This is the truth being offered by an overly qualified Porsche product expert without an ounce of marketing hype.
Well I can see both sides...this kind of sounds like the discussion when PDK first came out. Lets face it, non of us like change. However, I too think driving an electric does not give us sensory overload we enjoy with our cars but I will still get a Taycan if it looks like the concept....just like do have cars with double clutch transmissions (which is why I still keep my 6 speed 996 and in fact will likely keep it for ever). Lets face it, in the next generation we will have people who don't even know how to drive buying cars and then it doesn't matter whether it is electric or combustion....that's kind of a bummer but its reality.
I do agree with Walter about the need for development of other technologies as well.
Funny I never read this article until today depite
it being out for months .... Has it been purposely kept under the radar ?
Imagine if Porsche invested that same 6 billion that’s going towards EV into the proven and practical IC technology that has remained successful for over a century and worked towards producing synthetic fuels instead of putting all their eggs in one very flimsy basket.
Imagine if Porsche invested that same 6 billion that’s going towards EV into the proven and practical IC technology that has remained successful for over a century and worked towards producing synthetic fuels instead of putting all their eggs in one very flimsy basket.
Well... Porsche and the other auto manufacturers have invested billions, probably trillions by now, in ICE R&D over the past 100 years. It seems like they've explored every corner countless times. But Otto cycle engines are simply inherently inefficient. (In the best of circumstances, 75-85% of the energy in a gallon of gas simply goes out the tailpipe as heat...) You can gain a bit with variations, like using VVT to switch to Atkinson-like operation. But they are still pretty inefficient. Contrast to an electric motor where well over 90% of the energy fed into it can be converted to motive force. The calculations for ICE are even worse when one considers the whole "well to wheel" path for each.
Folks that own EVs (and PHEVs) quickly discover all the advantages of electric propulsion. That "Flintstones vs Jetsons" commercial that VW has been forced to run lately (due to the Dieselgate settlement) is spot on. Both my wife and I now have plug-in cars as daily drivers (2016 Volt and 2018 Model 3LR). I can't see us ever buying another pure ICE car. Though perhaps in a couple years I'd like to buy something like the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV to replace a 'utility vehicle' that I also own. We'll see what is on the market at the time.
For non-car enthusiasts EV are a better product once 3 issues are overcome: range, cost, and charging.
Range is pretty much no longer an issue with the new generation of EV's hitting the market.
Cost is coming down quickly. In the next 10 years EV's will be equal too or less than a comparable ICE vehicle.
Charging is also quickly becoming a non issue. Tesla has shown has fast charging infrastructure can be rolled out and I'm confident other major automakers will do the same in the next 5 years. Also in the next few years charging times are going to drop to less than 20 minutes which gets really close to ICE vehicles.
Most people should be driving EV's. They are better daily drivers, electricity can be supplied from huge number of different resources, they are way more efficient than the best ICE vehicles, and they offer a better vehicle architecture.
Obviously for enthusiasts it's a different story. They lack the passion and sensory connection. They are faster in a straight line and will probably become quicker at the track very shortly, but as the 911R showed, lap times aren't everything. It will be a hard transition for most of us who will dread the day when the only ICE cars for sale at a dealer are used / classic vehicles. But if anyone is going to be able to make exciting EV's it's going to be someone like Porsche. Therefore we should be supportive of their effort.
The ICE efficiency argument is a loaded one for all the EV hopefuls because it assumes that electricity is simply plucked from thin air.
I also have found that it’s only those that currently own or are looking to purchase an EV that tout how “superior “ it is. Presumably because the marketing hype has already gotten to them and enough to believe that its very limited and skewed success will one day become the widely accepted norm. Certainly, not it in our lifetimes , anyways.
As of right this minute and for the foreseeable future there is nothing as proficient as an ICE at turning a small easily transportable quantity of fuel into a massive amount of motive force at least when simplicity and versatility is concerned. It is unmatched even as “ inefficient” as it’s clamined to be.
But don’t take my biased word for it : ask yourself why at the dawn of the automotive industry ICE gas vehicles became the widely adopted choice over electric and steam powered ones.
Then ask yourself if anything has really changed over a century later or if the pros and cons regarding the core fundamentals of those propulsion systems have remained virtually the same .....
The EV lost fair and square to ICE over a century ago for virtually the same reasons it will likely lose again if the decision is left to the consumers actually purchasing and operating the products based on merits instead of that decision being forced upon us by the powers that be...
It's interesting to watch these debates continually devolve, with people forced towards either a "pro" camp that's nothing but positive about the future of EVs and the "anti" camp that's consistently negative. I suspect this is because EV's are being pitched as part of an "energy transition", which suggests that current ICE cars will all be replaced by new technology that's "better". "Energy convergence" is a far better frame in my opinion- this reflects reality: that renewable energy and EV technology will become mainstream and play a large role in the overall energy mix, but it will coexist besides existing technologies. In an "energy convergence" world it's not either/ or, it's both.
For many applications hydrocarbon fuels are the best technology available both now and for the foreseeable future. If you doubt that simply try to fly a practical commercial aircraft or race an Indy 500 or F1 race on electricity. Batteries are not going to be "better" for these and many other applications that require endurance any time soon despite their exponential strides towards lower cost and greater power density.
On the other hand there are huge and growing applications where EVs are either already better or shortly will be: sprint races (ie Pike's Peak), in-city box delivery trucks (ie UPS), urban commute cars, etc. And as the technology evolves that list is only going to grow, and between these two extremes is a grey area where one can debate.
Economics are likely the major fundamental that will push long term EV adoption. Photovoltaics are now the cheapest way to generate electricity in much of the world, and in the US we're seeing fixed 25 year contracts for new PV plants signed below 2.4 cents per kWh. Put that cost of energy into perspective: the average gallon of gas costs around $3.00. Take that and charge your Tesla Model 3 instead at 2.4 cents per kwh and you'd be able to drive 520 miles with it- "520 miles per gallon". And that's with today's technology, and performance far closer to a Panamera than a Prius.
Obviously regular consumers can't purchase electricity at these rates any time soon, but also consider that the cost of PV energy has come down 10x in the last decade while battery packs have come down 5x. It doesn't take a genius to see where this is going, nor does it take one to understand that ICE cars can't increase efficiency to catch up. It took roughly 50 years for the best road going ICE cars to go from the low 30s to the low 40s percent peak efficiency. Average efficiency is far lower, and physics dictates that we can never get more than about 60% efficiency from a practical ICE engine. We are still pouring money into the space and advances are being made (F1 engines just cracked 50%) but the advantage EVs have on an efficiency and not long from now cost basis is unbeatable.
Thus in my eyes it's inevitable that more and more of the world's transportation will become electrified over time, and given the eventual economic carrot available it's been anything but short-sighted for lawmakers to help accelerate this evolution. How far this goes at any point in time will depend, but the argument that EV's "can't" work is becoming thinner and thinner in nearly every application. Where I live and how I drive current generation EV technology already works as well or better for 99% of what I do (the remaining 1% being "crazy car stuff" most people want nothing to do with).
From an enthusiast point of view it also seems that the non-hybrid ICE engine's days at the top of the performance car food chain are highly numbered. A 1200 hp Veyron will do 21 miles in the city on a gallon of gas, with all of the pollution that entails. Meanwhile a 5 passenger Tesla Model S will already beat it to 60 mph, and we'll shortly have a number of 1200 hp electrics available that will not only be an order of magnitude cheaper but will do over 10x the number of miles with the same energy. And bonus- no corporate average fuel economy concerns, no particle filters, no need for 10 radiators that can dump enough thermal energy to heat a small village, etc.
My only hope is that we still have a choice: for a "fun" car I'll walk past a faster electric to grab the keys of my manual GT3 every time. I just hope that regulations still allow it and enough enthusiasts buy it so that option remains available.
Electric cars have their place. The city as stated.
That's part of the current grey area that likely depends on where you live and the particular platform/ niche of the vehicle in question. I'm very comfortable with "around" the city here, 500+ miles per day being a non-issue, with the Tesla. My previous EV was absolutely limited to city only.
Originally Posted by tcsracing1
They also create alot of waste to build them and dispose of them.
True, but have you seen modern oil operations? Do the math and the waste is staggering: 150k miles and 25 mpg means extracting, refining and transporting 45,000 lbs of tank ready fuel over a car's lifespan. If you're getting that end product from heavy crude, say with thermally enhanced oil recovery, you're lifting over 500,000 lbs of fluid ~1000 ft out of the ground as the starting point. That's says nothing of the thermal energy needed for both extraction and processing, none of which is recyclable or recoverable (unlike Lithium batteries, which are moving towards very high recycling rates). Batteries do include significant embodied energy that must be accounted for, but drill down on gasoline cars and you'll find the scale is still very heavily tilted towards EVs.
I guess my post lacked a little nuance. My agreement with him is probably more a grumpy old man thing - ie “the end of ICE is the end of fun driving” type statement rather than a more considered view.
I do believe EVs are absolutely the future and ICE cars will be considered a quaint, noisy affectation by future generations - doesn’t mean I won’t mourn their passing though.
But don’t take my biased word for it : ask yourself why at the dawn of the automotive industry ICE gas vehicles became the widely adopted choice over electric and steam powered ones.
Then ask yourself if anything has really changed over a century later or if the pros and cons regarding the core fundamentals of those propulsion systems have remained virtually the same .....
Um - as we sit here discussing this using our personal computers over the internet - which didn't exist a hundred years ago...
In my mind, two key advances were made in the last 25 years to make EVs practical. Both came as byproducts of the computer industry. The first was high power digital motor controls. By using solid-state devices, IGBTs in the inverters in particular, and switching them under high speed computer control, electric motors can now do things that were unheard of before. In the EV world, we saw the beginnings of this in GMs EV1. Even though the EV1 was not a success, it was a groundbreaking design in this respect. The second advance was the move to Li-ion battery technology. The founders of Tesla, Eberhard and Tarpenning, came from the hand-held "E-book" world - where Li-ion batteries were being increasingly deployed in lots of products - including laptop computers. They demonstrated that Li-ion was also the superior battery technology for EVs - which led to the Tesla Roadster. That was just 10 years ago, and the rest is history.
There is also the fact that today all homes are wired for electricity. A hundred years ago, the relatively few homes that had electricity had enough service to light some light bulbs...
The ICE efficiency argument is a loaded one for all the EV hopefuls because it assumes that electricity is simply plucked from thin air.
please don’t be so condesending to EV owners it’s shows your uninformed bias and suggest you think they are all stupid..
no no one thinks electricity is plucked from thin air...
there are a few simpl facts that make this statement factually and scientifically wrong:
even _IF_ your grid is 100% fossil fuel based it is simply more efficient to consume those fuels in a commercial scale generation facility than it is in your 17% efficient motor - I’ve done the math in another post - EV efficiency is devestating and makes gas cars look ridiculous even in the face of a 100% fossil fuel powered grid - it’s still better to drive the EV
the grid is not 100% fossil fuel based and is trending to less fossil fuels not more- so EVs then gain in that scenario and gas cars continue to be left behind at their current efficiency levels
as Pete said one doesn’t have to wipe out the other - we are going to mix the two techs - there will be more EV and less gas - but neither is going to 100% or 0% any time soon - what we are witnessing is an adjustment of the mix
the efficiency argument is not a lie or a fantasy and it is real - asserting the efficiency argument isn’t real is a fantasy hard core gas people want to believe is true and makes them feel better about thing but has zero evidence and never bears inspection or a factual break down of where all the actual power goes - and no matter how hard you try you can’t fuel up your gas car via solar panels...but I do that exact thing on a daily basis and have for nearly the past 5 years...
‘’the same arguments keep coming up from different people on this forum and it’s standard EV myth that has been debunked for years but keeps coming up - the disposal poor elm is also mostly bunk and only interesting if you really think disposing of a gas car after 200,000 miles is a zero impact affair spoiler it’s not - and during those 200,000 miles it generated a lot more waste than the EV does in the same miles...so again bunk.
100 years later EV’s are still severely hampered by limited range, laughable energy density of batteries and a sparse recharging infrastructure. So I fail to see where any key advancements have been made as neither problem is anywhere close to being resolved...
Davo4porsche I feel like we have had this argument before and truthfully and respectfully I don’t care to replace biased math calculations with common sense and practical approach. It takes nothing more than simple math to realize the laughable energy density of even the most advanced EV on the horizon.
It also doesn’t take a chart or any real math to realize that the lack of fuel tax in an EV world will cause a massive hike in taxes or worse cause the cost of electricity to skyrocket forcing an already burdened tax payer more strain in being forced to pay more for less.
I for one can’t wait to pay more in taxes and to keep my home lights on for the privellege of driving a car that goes 200 miles before I’m stuck on rural country road that didn’t quite get that supercharging station that was promised on every town corner. Maybe in the future we can come up with some way to transport massive amounts of energy stored in a small portable 5 gallon container...
09-21-2018, 10:28 AM
OT - Walter Rohrl not a fan of electric cars
