A majority of auto executives still think battery electric cars will fail, survey says

I see the rebates being continued by Congress at some point when the political winds shift. Either that, or stronger mandates.

I agree with Munpot...I would go further to say it is the gov't (Ca.) mandate that forces the plug-ins to be made, and sold at low profit margin in order to push sales. So you got a mandate, all kinds of huge federal and state incentives not to mention free HOV in Ca. which seems to be the biggest sales factor.

But I depart from Munpot in that I feel it is like 10% ethanol in the USA, it will be mandated and continued to some level say 10% of the "gasoline or other fuel" sales. It's jobs and it's for carving out a part of the auto fuel market for alternate fuels for jobs.

We do not have a free market in that sense...Congress's entire job is to make up the rules of the "free" market, and that includes mandates for things they want to see happen.

 

but doesn't most everything get a government mandate and tax incentives?
i think it would be naive to think the fossil fuel industry, and auto industry operates independently of politics and tax dollars.

also, this thread is about the future of ev's. are we now so long in low oil prices that we believe with the hummer drivers that gasoline will never go up again?
is there a cheap and clean way to produce fossil fuels? do we also think that renewable's are a dead end?
why is it so difficult to think out of today's box?

 

"Renewables" we should not use a broad brush to greenwash everything we like politically. Wind power became cost-competitive somewhere around 1990's although we delayed using it.

Ethanol is considered renewable and that has some heavy eco-costs. You are making the assumption, that many are making, that there could not possibly be any greater energy of the planet and mankind than fossil fuels. You are saying since you see fossil fuels as politically incorrect, that anyone using fossil fuels is a Luddite guilty of not seeing the future the way you do. But you are missing that fossil fuels (probably excluding coal) may be important for the future of mankind, for good reasons. In this Country, we are vilifying oil and gas to the n-th degree, to the extent we cannot see clearly on it.

 

no, i'm not. i'm not a politically correct kind of guy. i do believe that some of our problems in the middle east are related to oil, and in consideration of possible climate change, i prefer to err on the side of caution.
also, i think that things like fracking and shale may be bad for the environment.
i use fossil fuels, and realize they have their place for the time being, but that doesn't mean forever.

phew, you put a lot of words in my mouth! but why does any of that preclude the future of ev's?

 

Their record is good, their balance sheet is not.

 

I guess Sunday morning is my soap box day.

 

preach it, sister!

 

Just doing that on trips and then removing is a lot of work.

 

Both fast charging BEVs and FCEVs face infrastructure build out challenges. In the former case, BEVs need significant battery improvements along with faster chargers to address the refueling issue. FCEVs work well but the lack of infrastructure is stifling. The work necessary to built a national network of H2 stations needs federal and state support. I don’t see that happening any time soon.

I am an early Mirai owner. I have had a mixed experience. I could not get myself to buy a BEV as the local non-Tesla L3 options are sparse. I took the next best option by purchasing a Prius Prime.

 

Do you still have the Mirai? Please share your experiences.

 

This is such an interesting statement.
The way I read your statement, BEVs need significant battery improvements before they will work well.

What gives me that impression is your following sentence what begins with “FCEVs work well...”. You then qualify that with the lack of infrastructure being stifling.
Was this your intention?

 

The Mirai is reliable. My ability to get around is dependent on H2 station availability. Refueling is fast: 5 minutes or so normally.

Certain stations in California are known to be less reliable than others (Linde company behind the less-than-stellar stations). We read horror stories all the time from single-station metropolitan areas frequently on a private Mirai-owners group. Fueling is also extremely expensive. If it wasn’t for the complimentary $15K fuel card then the car would be about 7x more expensive per mile to drive than a regular Prius.

The challenge right now is station owners have no reason to drop prices as each new H2 car comes with a complimentary fuel card. Toyota has thus far shown no desire to allow owners to purchase subsidized H2 once their fuel cards are exhausted or expire. A day of reckoning is coming.

With that said, I have almost 2 years of experience with the car. Feel free to ask questions.

I think you’re reading a bit too much into my late nite post. The Mirai is a pain because it was tethered to a range that could get me to the next station (unless I wanted Toyota to send a complimentary flatbed to the next closest station).

Where non-Tesla BEVs don’t work for my usage is the critical window of charge time from getting home at night until I set off on my morning commute. The local charging infrastructure (paid or not) isn’t great. A dinner party that goes a little late means that my range for the next day is compromised. This isn’t a concern in the Mirai or the Prime.

The Prime is the best of both worlds today. It lacks several features that I like in the Mirai but it makes up for it in the fact that I have don’t have to plan a lot before setting off to a destination.

 

I'm not surprised to read this -- Tesla are the only reasonably all purpose EVs on the market for now, but I am curious: what home charging performance do you have ?

 

I have a L2 charger for the Prime. A fully depleted battery on a 90D would take 10 hours to charge at 48A (my current setup).

The 72A HPWC would be better fit but even then it would take 5.5 hours for a full charge. If the charge time was an hour for overnight charging without damaging the battery then a BEV would not give me any overnight-charge range anxiety.

 

How long do you anticipate keeping it?
If you only keep it using the complementary card, how would your costs compare to owning a similar Prime, for instance?

 

Edge case for sure, but correct by the numbers.
In practice though, I imagine most people would stop by a Supercharger for 20 minutes to collect some 40 kWh and then top off while at home for those presumably unusual days.

 

If H2 prices do not drop significantly then I plan on getting rid of it as soon as my fuel card runs out (unless Toyota will sell us subsidized fuel).

The Mirai is a more expensive car than a Prius Prime so I focused on running costs. With the fuel card and free maintenance, the first 3 years with the Mirai are almost free. Without the fuel card, the Mirai costs $0.36/mile to drive with a 240 mile range per tank. Insurance on the Mirai is about 35% more expensive. Registration is also more expensive for the Mirai.

The 36-month lease on the Mirai is a great deal as long as you stay within the mileage and return at term. No one should be buying a Mirai today (at least no one thinking about their wallet). Leasing, on the other hand, is smart as long as you have more than one station along your commute.

 

i wonder what the real costs of building an fcev vs a bev will be in the future.