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

well ya i guess sorta . . . . but there WAS this fun / interactive website where you could input any given speed versus temperature versus battery size to yield various ranges one could expect.

Informative AND fun

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if i had an i3, or any german car, i would always be prepared for alternate transportation.

 

Honda is doing removable modular battery pods for their scooters, motorbikes, autoricks and related light vehicles. It really makes sense in that situation. You want the battery to be removable so the owner can get it near a power outlet for charging.

I don't think it works as well for cars. I really do buy into the argument that it's better to let the battery package be part of the structure.

 

Think again. It worked fine for cars. In fact twice as fast as filling up a big gasser. Check it out;

thing was, owners didn't mind taking a few extra minutes at a Supercharger, and after so many months, Tesla shut the battery swap station down & now use the preferred method by Super charging. But both the S & X are built for quick traction pack removal.
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You may have missed the point here- The packs were never interchangeable from one model to another (as in @Georgina Rudkus' original argument or my Honda example) and now they aren't even swappable as a replenishment system with the swap robot shelved.

So yes, I get it that the Teslas support an easy pack swap, but only for other model-specific packs and (now) only as a repair.

 

True, but you may have missed @hill 's point that the market decided swapable packs aren't really necessary with a proper quick charge infrastructure.

 

perhaps we are saying the same thing? After all .... the swap station proved that the X & S Teslas can swap a 60 kwh pack in a Model S, recharge it, then swap it into an 'X' that was sold as an 85 - 70 - 90 or 75kWh. That would be really great - as you could buy a car w/ a small pack, then on a long trip, swapping into a bigger pack while driving cross country ..... a mini lease, for the amount of days that you are using the company's rental pack.

...... yes, not swappable for replenishment purposes ..... but .....

not just repair. There are at least a couple aftermarket shops that use the swapability of the X & S as an upgrade function/possibility. So if you have a small pack, these companies rebuild salvaged modules into larger packs & so you pay for bigger capacity & Bam, you just got an upgrade, with all the appropriate software so that even your screen now shows your car as a bigger model. Or if you just need a rebuild pack you have the same advantage. Not so, with the model 3 unfortunately. After a ¼million miles in the model 3, you'd economically have to take it into Tesla to do the swap as the complexity & cost would be prohibitive for aftermarket companies.
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Back up a couple of posts. I had already agreed that swappable packs weren't a necessity because it made more sense (for other reasons) to make them part of the structure of the car.

That Tesla has made them both structural and swappable is a remarkable achievement deserving of recognition somewhere, but that seems tangential to the current discussion.

While we are exploring tangents, I still don't get the supercharger thing. I don't own a BEV, but if I did I suspect I would avoid public chargers altogether.

 

Therein lies the irony, as many will agree with that philosophy, & yet others will continually bemoan ad nauseam that interstate long distance supercharging doesn't work for "them" because it's just not fast enough for "them" - all the while being incapable of grasping that such regular Cannonball driving is a minority within a minority.
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Right, I'm pretty sure you and I already discussed that in detail in another thread, and I don't think there's much point in replaying it here since we already mostly agree on it.

 

Honda's modular battery "golf cart"/NEV concept used 4 modules. So you need a passenger to help carrying them in or make another trip to the vehicle. The scooter uses two.

Honda isn't just thinking vehicle energy supplies with this. The home chargers are also power supplies, and they have one that can be wheeled around for camping. I'm hoping for a back model for powering corded lawn and other power tools.

It's there to show that a BEV can truly replace an ICE car for many people. Like you, I'll only get a BEV that can meet my daily driving needs with just charging at home. For long trips, I'll take the ICE car. Not because of times spent at a Supercharger, that might actually make long trips more bearable, but because any second ICE car I have will need exercising.

 

At the risk of yet another tangent... I'm super excited about the ongoing revolution in outdoor power equipment. Like most of my neighbors, I do my own rather than hiring a pro. The previous owner of my home had roughly 20 small-engined gadgets on hand to care for the place. (!) I've so far gotten by with 2.5, and I'm really looking forward the day I can replace those last ones with something cleaner.

Every small gas engine we can replace with an electric tool is a major improvement in air quality. Certainly more significant than replacing a gasoline car with an EV, and generally a lot cheaper too.

 

Hoping to replace the 17 year old gas mower next year. I have an unpowered reel mower, but when the grass is actively growing in the spring and fall, it really requires to mow twice a week to stay on top of it. That wasn't working with my laziness and schedule.

 

I have 2 'Hybrid' chain saws (electric/with a small gas generator as a range extender) and the usual blowers/trimmers etc for the city house but the rest of my gear is all gas.
It has to be.
So far, my 5 acres of county property can only be maintained with gasser-gear.

Some day, when I'm perhaps in my 90s I will divest myself of my "country estate" which is fairly valueless commercially, but I still enjoy getting out of town and mowing, cutting, fixing, and picking up.

Cheapest gym ever, and i don't need to pay to target practice!

 

Yeah, I've replaced all of my small yard tools with battery ones, excepting plug in's.

I'm waiting to see when my grand dad's 22 year old riding mower to expire, so I cam purchase the Ryobi one.

 

FWIW, I find the conversation in here very refreshing. Unlike most of the internet there are people in here that are disagreeing but staying very civil and even trying to understand each other's views. That is a pretty remarkable thing online.

 

I have been on a kick this summer buying battery operated tools for trimming and weed wacking. I have considered an electric push mower for trimming but bought my wife a new Ferris Zero turn mower. After the chord is cut there will be no going back.

 

Per mile, certainly. However, replacing a car that travels thousands of miles has a far greater impact than replacing a mower that travels miles or tens of miles.
That said, we also enjoy electric lawn equipment. Quieter, less maintenance, and cleaner. Absolutely love it

 

I'm sure somebody's done much better math

Emissions Test: Car vs. Truck vs. Leaf Blower

I don't know that there is a perfect test- and these guys directly acknowledge this by naming the section "comparing apples to kumquats" but I think they came up with a fair and reasonable testing system, and the results are pretty strong: some small engines are cleaner than others, but their emissions are so high to begin with that it's very easy for the average home yard-carer to emit more from their small tools than from their ICE car in a given year.

EDIT: added:

Quoted from linked article:

Extrapolating this: Running that leaf blower for 115 minutes per year would equal 15,000 miles (a relatable annual average for many drivers) in that Ford truck.

 

Thanks for the link.
The pollution doesn’t include CO2 levels.
In addition, it appears they have results in time, not distance. So using the pollutant with the greatest difference, per minute, the leaf blower is 300 times more polluting. But the pollutant with the smallest difference the leaf blower is only 2-3 times more polluting.

I may also be relying too much on my own experience, but I use a leaf blower 30 minutes a year, if that. I drive far more than 150 hours a year, so even with the most intense pollutant, swapping my car for an EV makes a bigger difference.