Featured 2023 Prius spy shot

I don't think it needs to be that long. My analysis said 40 miles but it is application-dependent - if you have a longer commute or no charging at work (or both) you need more. If you live in flat-land and have everything close, you need less. 40 seems to cover 70-80% of people.[/QUOTE]
Getting people to buy the car isn't a question of what they need. It is about offering something that makes them comfortable with the purchase. EVs are still much of an unknown for most of the public. Even hybrids still aren't big sellers. When most of the population has had experience with plug ins, they'll be more comfortable in buying an EREV with shorter range.

Or the higher price of ICE fuel, whatever the cause, simply makes the longer EV range more desirable.

 

That's probably true. My son simplifies that argument as "people are morons".

 

If they bought cars by need, the roads would be filled with sedans, wagons, and some minivans.

 

Every day, more and more, I think my son is correct.

I see my neighbors' windows open on a 95 degree day with their A/C running, for example.

 

My experience is the traction battery range needs to be at least 2x your daily work commute. This gives enough EV range for ordinary chores but more is better.

Bob Wilson

 

My daily work commute is about 15 feet.

While I was growing up, my Mom worked about 6 blocks from the house.

That's not a good measure.

 

Ha ha when I worked more like double my daily school commute plus work commute plus stops in between and off to the side to take care of my mother and father. Now it's more like taking care of MIL and FIL plus shopping trips and tag teaming the grandkids events and stand-in babysitting. So I agree more is better.

 

Weak range extender with a large battery is not an optimal use of resources. There's a reason the concept didn't take off. PHEVs all the way!

 

What financial incentive is there for ANY manufacturer to go to the nth° of efficiency in a form (combustion) .... when a segment of government has a hard-on against it, attempting to completely legislate ICE out of existence.

 

Yes it is.

I last started the engine in my Prime on the way home from a wedding on Memorial Day weekend. Since then, I've been lugging around a large, needlessly-powerful engine I don't use. Better than a large, needlessly energetic battery but still bad. I'd rather be lugging around a 100 pound range extender than a 600 pound engine system. and with a larger battery (40 miles range, approximately), both systems would do the same thing.

 

These apparently drastic steps are because no one gave a damn about global warming back when it would have been easier and cheaper to address.

The ICE "bans" all allow the sale of PHEVs; cars with an ICE.

Part of the solution to global warming are carbon neutral fuels. Porsche is already building a plant to make such gasoline in Chile. The cost of making and shipping it here means a price of $10 gallon. That estimate was from before our delayed inflation took effect, and taxes are added. Anyone that will be using gas more often than regular trips will be damn interested in efficiency.

 

I've been using an e-bike for all my close to the house trips - grocery store, Costco, Home Depot, etc. Basically, it costs $1 per thousand miles to drive in energy consumption, and it gets me exercise, it's fun, and it's often faster than a car because I can take the trails and skip all the traffic and traffic control devices (lights and stop signs). So far, my longest trip has been 22 miles one-way.

You want efficient? Try an electric-assist Velomobile. 9 watt hours per mile at 20mph, give or take.

If you want to be efficient, you can basically drive energy costs to essentially zero. $1 per thousand miles is indistinguishable from zero and Velomobiles are like twice as efficient as that.

 

We walk, for most of our grocery shopping these days, lol.

 

I thought you were wading. <grins>

Bob Wilson

 

great .... we'll just get the entire world to abide by that standard. really practical

.

 

The point is, your work commute isn't a good measure of your daily or between-charge needs.

A friend of mine had a 220 mile each way commute for a while.

 

then he needed at least a 440 mile range bev, and more is better

 

He drove a G2 Prius. This was in about 2008. If you think a 440 mile range EV is hard to come by now, think about then.

 

they don't work for everybody, yet

 

I work at a grocery store, a little more than a mile's drive or walk. When I drive, I use only ~150 Wh/mile. The Prime is fairly efficient. I occasionally walk there in good weather when I don't need to buy a bag of groceries at the end of my shift. Of course, that ends up being a much more efficient trip, except for needing to eat a few extra calories due to the physical output. So... 0 Wh/m., much better than driving, or even an electric bike. One day I decided to try an experiment and walked to work, but I walked backwards instead, and amazingly I not only didn't use any Wh/m, but this resulted in ~minus 5 Wh/m! I gained energy by doing that. But I don't recommend it. I might next try driving the Prime backwards and seeing what the energy display shows. Life is all about experimenting.