Featured The Problem(s) with Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)

My understanding of roadside assistance for people who run out of gas is that somebody brings them enough fuel to make it to the nearest gas station, not enough to refill the car.

I'm thinking that this works with BEVs as well, with the added bonus that a battery pack or ICE/inverter is safer to transport than a Jerry can full of gas.....

BEVs are still facing some stiff challenges, but roadside assistance isn't really one of them IMHO.

 

AAA Electric Car Recharging Trucks Seldom Used | Gas 2

 

Awesome link... Seems the fossil fuel industry is still trolling alt energy car forums in support of gasoline obliviousness, or as that link says:

"AAA currently has about 54,000,000 members. Each year, it gets over 32 million calls to help stranded motorists — half of them from drivers who have run out of gas. It seemed likely to AAA management that drivers of electric cars would need a similar service from time to time. It decided to add service trucks to areas where electric cars are most popular — Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix, and Orlando. Each truck has an onboard generator capable of recharging any electric car. Each has plugs and adapters for CHAdeMO, CSS, or Tesla Supercharger standards. Much to the surprise of AAA, however, the trucks have been used less often than anticipated. Electric car drivers, it seems, are far more conscious of how far then can drive without running out of battery charge than drivers of conventional cars are about how much fuel is left in the tank. Greg Brannon, AAA director of automotive engineering and industry relations says, “Our feeling is that they keep a pretty close eye on it and manage their drive accordingly—much more so than a driver of a gasoline vehicle.”

 

i make it a policy never to run low on fuel, never mind completely out.

that being said, it is not a problem because bev's aren't ready for primetime yet. the good news is that the rate of adoption is growing with the rate of infrastructure, and the ability of utilities to improve the grid.
when there are enough bev's to 'clog the roads when dead', there will be plenty of places to fuel up and roadside assistance equipped to give them enough charge to be on their way.

this is the best way to covert to sustainable transportation.

now, if you want to start a thread titled, 'the problems with petrol vehicles', there wouldn't be enough internet space to cover them all.

 

My issue is resale value and the degradation and battery replacement cost.

The resale value of a BEV is about 22% after 5 years.

Rebates drive up the initial cost of a BEV, because the manufacturers use it as a marketing ploy. This further depresses resale value.

A replacement battery cost $8,000 for a Nissan Leaf. After 5 years plus, it is basically disposable like a five year old iPhone.

New models obsolete the older ones in the eyes of the consumer. No one wants or prefers to buy a 5 year iPhone unless you want a basic cell phone.

Until BEV's are mainstream and maintain a better resale value, I'll stay away.

 

BEVs have earned their niche as compliance vehicles and for urbaintes who don't get out of their alabaster deserts much.....and they WILL continue to improve over time.....just like the current i-phone-thingies are a little (lot) more capable than the 2007 model....which you probably couldn't GIVE away right now.

Some of the early PHEV's are a PHENOMENAL value NOW, and soon there will be down-market replacement packs available for the Leaves and Teslas of the world that will make them MORE viable in 11 years than the first iphonethingy is now.

All of this is good stuff....but you're right.
Buy a BEV......NOW???

...nope!

Someone wiser than me said that the depreciation > the tax kickbacks.
You want to be on the right side of that depreciation.

 

Range limitation and lack of charging infrastructure makes it unrealistic to have BEV as an only car if I ever plan to use it for a long trip. That said it can serve as a perfect second car only for short distance mostly in town use. I have been entertaining an idea for acquisition of BEV (2018 LEAF to be more specific) for a while, but added cost of installation of L2 charger and higher tax and insurance rate along with general lack of inventory in my local dealer have made the deal less likely for now.

I agree with your assertion completely. That’s why I am not looking for purchase of BEV, will be taking only equitable lease term. With company and government incentives for now, there are some very attractive lease terms out there.

 

Figure out how many exceptions there are to the normal amount you drive. I figure 3 trips a year longer that 200 miles round trip and can rent for those. If I need to take large cargo somewhere, there are EVs which can tow a small trailer. If it is big, I'm having professionals do it anyway. Buying for the less than 1% chance seems to make no sense financially. Why tote all that space around every day?

Just this week I'm taking two of those exceptions trips. One was done at 42 MPG. The other will be done at 30 due to passenger preference. The first couldn't have been done in an EV due to time constraints (no time for charging and get back before midnight). The second would be tight for time with the needed 9 hour drive in a day return trip impossible.

Horses for courses.

 

If the used market were normal and stable, there would be a bit less fear in trying a battery car. If it didn't work out you'd just trade it or sell it.

With the market so wildly distorted by low availability, wacky tax schemes, rapid changes in offerings from one year to the next... it's a much riskier proposition.

I do think there is a very solid case for commuters who own well-powered garages and have completely regular commutes. I believe it's a market worth serving immediately and developing for the future.

The economic problem is that this is a role currently well served by sub-$20k cars.

 

Yap, that is correct. However, if there are widely available sub-$20k short range BEV on US market now, do you think those commuters are going to buy BEV instead? I have a doubt.

 

With all the incentives, people are paying under, and some cases way under, MSRP for new. With those in effect, calculating resale from the MSRP is misleading. Note that Tesla doesn't use factory or dealer incentives like the others, and their cars have retained a better resale.

The technology is still improving. Which hurts resale, but so does just having a redesign of a hybrid or ICE car. The effect is greater with plug ins now, but you can be waiting forever if waiting for things to be perfect.

The flip side to all this, is that for those that buy used, these cars can be extremely affordable, even after budgeting for a replacement battery.

One of the reasons for the rise of the SUV and 4WD/AWD is because people buy for the 10%, 5%, or 1% of the time they actually need the utility.

 

Personally I think that if there was an ordinary "menu" of 3-4 similar electric cars with prices directly competitive with gas cousins, people would order from it.

When each car-maker only produces one electric model and then takes pains to make it unlike all of their other cars, nobody can make useful comparisons and you wind up with a weirdo market that most people feel safe ignoring.

I don't know enough about battery manufacturing to make a call on this. I'd love to know what is going to drive the next two halvings of the commodity pricing involved. How close are we to the next one? are we already at a wall and it just can't happen until somebody discovers new physics?

 

HA !!
oh ye of little faith . . . . Maybe you never watched, "Field of Dreams"?
If you build it, they will come.
Same principal has applied for electric vehicles for years now.


These babies can put a dozen miles in our model X in less than 15 minutes - presuming we are dumb enough to let it get that low, because the screen gives you plenty of warning, and tells you when you get low - & where the closest stations are for a refill. If you're dumb enough to push it, you certainly wouldn't be dumb enough to be more than 4 or 5 miles away from making the destination that you thought you could get to. If we WERE farther away, yeah, the truck can stay there longer, & jack even more miles in for you.

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Temperature.... too warm and battery life shortens. Too cold then range shortens. Also you suffer a cold cabin because electricity can't keep the cabin warm enough.

For me, the latter is why PHEV is as far as I will ever go. Unless battery capacity becomes high enough I can splurge on giant cabin heaters without worrying about the range.

 

Until public charging stations are as plentiful and as fast as gas stations....you're ALWAYS going to worry about the range, and the non-1-percenters are always going to worry about the price until BEVs and ICVs reach price parity.

Temperature is more of a problem for BEVs than it is for ICVs (My SUV gets 21mpg summer and winter) but I'm not sure that I have any (reliable) data for BEV temperature versus range for people that live in flyover country.

 

2012 Prius V is worth $7,500 - $15,000 today (Edmunds). It cost $27,000 - $32,000 (Edmunds) That lower part of the range is 7,500/27,000 = 27% resale value. Just a reality check. New cars depreciate regardless of being BEV, hybrid or ICE. So if resale value is important to you, buy used.

 

Start with using PlugShare.com to see what kind of chargers are in the areas you typically drive. Set the filters for:

• J1772 - these are the chargers near places you shop. Some cost and others are free so look at both.
• SuperCharger fast DC charger - look at long distance routes you've taken in the past. Restricted to Tesla, it is the largest and growing charging network.
• CHAdeMO fast DC charger - found on Japanese EVs and plug-in hybrids, these are typically found at dealers locked up outside of business hours. Tesla has an adapter to use them.
• CCS fast DC charger - the alternative to SuperCharger, the network is growing but roughly 1/4th the size of the SuperCharger network.
• Plug-in hybrids - carry your high speed charger with you and buy gas on long distance drives.

At home, expect to identify or install, ~$400-600, for a 24-40A, L2 charger. Dryers are typically 30A, 24A usable, while a NEMA 14-50 installed can handle 50A, 40A usable.The actual charging rate is set by the charger in the car. What this does is 2-4x the charging rate of a regular outlet, 8-16A, 120VAC. So when you get home, the car has full range within a couple of hours versus after midnight. The car will typically come ready to charge at 12A but can be turned down to 8A. At one time there was a $1,000 tax credit for a private installation and $10,000 for a commercial installation.

Living in North Alabama, I went with plug-in hybrids back in 2016. I needed EV efficiency, 1/2 the cost of gas, around town yet long gas legs to reach the family home 700 miles away. The first is a 72 mi EV, 2014 BMW i3-REx. The other a 25 mi EV range, 2017 Prius Prime. Both have dynamic cruise control and automatic, emergency braking, mandatory requirements and are important safety and efficiency features.

If adopting a new technology, I recommend looking for an end-of-lease car. They are low mileage, often with significant warranty remaining, and the initial depreciation is 2-4x greater than a new car, tax credit. The tax credit is a big part of their rapid depreciation.

Bob Wilson

 

As Elon Musk has said, every gallon of gas burned into our atmosphere is relatively cheap in the moment, but actually is a subsidy that we don't have to pay for now, but is going to collectively cost us trillions of dollars in infrastructure, personal health and planetary health damages in the future.

And even with that outrageous offset at the low, low price of $3 a gallon in a 25mpg car for 100K miles costs the owner $12K in gas alone. And how many pennies per 25 miles does a BEV hooked up to a home solar charging system cost? This amount of savings alone covers the costs of a new battery pack. As for "resale value" after 5 years, those numbers are highly speculative because the market is way, way too young and 22% depreciation probably says more about the Nissan Leaf debacle than true cost accounting of a legitimate BEV vehicle.

I suspect a 2018 Model 3 Tesla, or a Plugin in Prius will be much higher than 22% in 5 years. Time will tell...

 

.... actually, like a gaser, it turns on what car you're talking about. If you look at a five-year-old Model S, it's about 50% depreciation, & that's pretty much common for many gassers. So if you don't like it, you buy used. Problem solved.

Oh, really? I've lost track of how many times I've posted charts showing Model S capacity degradation over the past 5 years. It runs between 5% and 10%. So if you were getting 277 miles range in your brand new model S 85, you'd have at least 250 miles range left after 5 years. It's important to know if your sources are fud. Let me know when you want to throw away THAT car, I'll be right over & gladly take it off your hands.

(sigh) if warm temperatures are shortening your electric car's battery. It's because you're in a junkie electric car. Don't blame the manufacturers that have decent thermal management, blame the junky EV manufacturer.
As for a cold cabin, & a cold traction pack, that is similar to a gasser. If you don't have a block heater, and it's Sub-Zero outside, good luck with getting your car started. Same with an electric car. You plug it in, & your cabin & battery will both be ready to ready to rock and roll ..... & just a quick FYI, a battery gets warmer when it charges & discharges, just like an ice gets warmer when it runs. See how patient one can be? When you have to continually dispel the same Fud over & over & over again?
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