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Electric cars are baller. They are fun to drive.

My Tesla Roadster does not corner like a Porsche 911, it's true, but it does not matter for everyday driving, because it is so effortlessly faster than anything else on the road, when I pull away from a stoplight, whoever I want to cut in front of is 50 feet behind me.

Instant acceleration is worth a lot, too.

For comparison: My previous car was a BMW M3. I would much, much rather drive my 2010 Tesla Roadster, and that is an old car at this point ... 2020 Tesla Roadster is going to be amazing.

> The range and the charging times are still an issue, especially if you don't live in California.

My roadster goes 340 miles on one charge. The upcoming 2020 Roadster goes 620 miles on one charge.

Admittedly, battery capacity costs money. Price-sensitivity is the reason most of these newly-announced cars don't have as much range. It is not a technical limitation.

And as with any such technology component, battery costs will continue to drop over time.

Your Roadster was a $100k vehicle when it's new (almost 2x as much as a M3 of the same year), the next Roadster starts at $200k.

For a six-figure vehicle, they better be ballers!

Where is my performance EV that's a competitor to the Miata or the Camero for $30k?

It's nearing the end of the first inning of the electric car shift. The first inning is the introduction and infection of the idea that it's possible and then probable. Musk mostly took care of that. Since it's starting from expensive and moving down, your performance full-EV for a real $30k (non-tax credit dependent), is still at least ten years out. For now they're going to keep selling higher-end vehicles to wealthier people (Tesla etc) and smaller ugly vehicles to environmental buyers (Leaf, Bolt, etc).

The new Leaf isn't ugly at all, it looks quite good. Decent performance too.

>Electric cars are baller. They are fun to drive. My Tesla Roadster does not corner like a Porsche 911, it's true, but it does not matter for everyday driving, because it is so effortlessly faster than anything else on the road, when I pull away from a stoplight, whoever I want to cut in front of is 50 feet behind me.

See I drive a Miata and there is nothing like it in the electric car world. The way you zoom from corner to corner without slowing. It’s interesting that people say electric cars and fun , then quantify it by saying it’s really fast but saying nothing about the handling. The good thing about a balanced and good handling car is that you can enjoy it all the time whereas straight line speed is becoming increasing irrelevant due to traffic and zealous speeding enforcement.

Put it this way how many seconds of full throttle will get you banned?*

*in the UK where a speeding ticket of 100mph plus is a ban.

My last ICE car was a Mini Cooper JCW 6-speed. Still have it. I love it for it's power-to-weight ratio and it's "go kart handling".

Besides being a daily driver it's been autocrossed and tracked plenty of times.

I have Miata friends and listen to the way they describe how tossable their cars are with a glimmer in their eye. I've driven their Miatas and I'd take my Mini's handling any day.

My current daily driver is a Model S 100D (not the P100D) and it is insanely fun to drive.

As far as daily drivers go I'd choose the Model S over the Mini 99 days out of 100.

It's over TWICE AS HEAVY as the Mini but that weight is about a foot off the ground, the suspension is more than up to the job of handling 2.5 tons, and it has a near 50/50 weight distribution.

The Mini might corner like a go kart, but the Model S corners like its on rails. I have just as much "fun" driving the Model S around town as the Mini but the effort put in to doing so is a mere fraction.

You present your Miata as a "balanced and good handling car", and I assure you; a competent electric car is 100% both of those things while also being effortless in traffic.

I grew up as a "driver" which is why the Mini is never going anywhere and other enthusiast ICE cars have made their way through my stable over the years. It's why I still choose a manual transmission car where I have to spool up the motor 1 day out of 100. And I don't foresee electric cars being realistic choices for a track day any time in the next 10-15 years.

But anybody who truly believes they aren't already sufficient for 99% of the car-buying public's needs* because they aren't "fun" either hasn't given one a shot or is in irrational denial.

* - Trucks are a different matter, but Musk hopes to change that soon, as well...

> And I don't foresee electric cars being realistic choices for a track day any time in the next 10-15 years.

Why not? People are already taking Teslas to track days, and doing quite well with them. They're faster than the majority of random cars that people are already bringing to track days. That's why track days have performance classes, so you don't have Civics competing directly against (and getting trounced by) Ferraris.

>Put it this way how many seconds of full throttle will get you banned?

So your argument in favor of gas cars is that they are slow? Ok.

I had two Miatas, including one that I modified for autocross (SCCA CSP) and later turbo'ed. A Miata with 1.2 bar of boost is almost too much fun. Great cars! So I know what you are talking about.

About 4 years ago I leased a Chevy Spark EV, one of the most basic of tiny econo-hatches. I assume the gas one is pretty sad to drive. The electric one is brilliant. Instant silent thrust! One pedal driving! It was a revelation. I'm never going to buy another ICE car, they just don't drive right.

Try something like a Chevy Bolt or a Tesla and see for yourself.

I can't help but feel that this conversation is missing the forest for the trees. The vast majority of people need cars to get them from point A to point B. They are not automobile racing enthusiasts who demand extreme cornering performance. If this were the only thing holding electric cars back, then electric cars could easily get to 99.X% market share, at which point there are an insignificant number of ICE cars remaining.

> Admittedly, battery capacity costs money. Price-sensitivity is the reason most of these newly-announced cars don't have as much range. It is not a technical limitation.

I disagree. The costs will drop, sure, but that's not particularly relevant for performance cars. The weight, on the other hand, will only increase with every bit of range you add. While electric cars can easily produce enough torque to still accelerate quickly (though how much range you'll really have driving that way is another question...), even with adaptive suspensions using magnetorheological dampers you can't cheat basic physics in corners.

And that's why I'd much rather have a BMW M3 (well, I'd prefer one of the AWD 911s, a V10 R8 or even an Audi RS4, but YMMV) than any electric car. Even if you value raw straight line acceleration that much, do note that the Tesla Roadster doesn't really compete with the BMW M3. You can get ICE vehicles with much better acceleration than an M3 that are still vastly superior in terms of handling to any Tesla.

> The costs will drop, sure, but that's not particularly relevant for performance cars.

Conversely, cost is highly relevant for non performance cars, which, from the perspective of displacing transportation petroleum use, are far more important.

Once the typical EV range reaches the limit that a person can comfortably drive without taking a long break (~300 miles?), range anxiety becomes a non-issue.

> Conversely, cost is highly relevant for non performance cars, which, from the perspective of displacing transportation petroleum use, are far more important.

Absolutely. I was responding to a post about performance cars, so I stuck to that.

> Once the typical EV range reaches the limit that a person can comfortably drive without taking a long break (~300 miles?), range anxiety becomes a non-issue.

I don't entirely buy the argument that range anxiety just goes away after some magic number. Charging times still impose constraints and require planning ahead, especially for longer trips. Even people who spend 99% of their time in short city commutes don't necessarily like the idea that they might not be free to just jump in their car and set off when they please.

Ultimately, no matter how far battery and charging tech advances, range and charging times will always be an objective disadvantage of electric cars vs ICE. When electric cars can actually outcompete ICE vehicles in price and other factors it may turn out to be a tradeoff most people are okay with, but we're not there yet.

For me, the biggest reason is not wanting to pollute the air in the city contributing to thousands of cancer deaths. Perhaps you think that's an "ideological reason". I find that rather sad, as to me it's clearly an ethical reason, which shouldn't be tied to a specific ideology. Unless you think if you're conservative, poisoning your fellow citizens is OK. I hope most conservatives don't think like that.

Anyway, other reasons are that electric cars accelerate more, won't be banned from cities like Paris, etc. any time soon, won't be affected by possible spikes in oil prices. Range and charging times are of course the biggest drawback, but it's getting better rather fast.

I wasn't making an argument about ideology or ethics, merely pointing out that my post was focused on the immediately measurable objective characteristics of cars - price and performance. I do recognize that people often buy electric cars due to ethical or philosophical preferences, and that's fine. Personally, I'm not a conservative and am generally concerned about air pollution in cities, though I don't think new non-diesel ICE vehicles are a primary issue in that regard in most cities in the world (there are exceptions, as always).

Actually most new (<5 year old) petrol cars use direct injection which emits much more fine soot particles than diesel with particle filter. In EU particle filter for petrol cars is only mandatory from 2017. Also worrysome that most of the particles are of the ultrafine type which is the most dangerous in terms of cancer-risk etc. https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/new-petrol-engine...

Modern petrol cars exhaust water vapor and carbon dioxide anyway.

In the cities I've lived in over the last 15 years, probably 90% of the taxis have been hybrid. I've seen FedEx, and even Coca-Cola running electric delivery trucks in urban areas.

I think a wholesale shift from gas/diesel to electric is a long way off, but certainly it seems that electric/hybrid is the end of compressed natural gas vehicles.

Shenzhen just converted their entire bus fleet, 30,000 buses, to all electric.

Seattle, Vancouver, and other cities with abundant hydroelectric power have had electric bus fleets since at least the 1960's. Probably earlier. The only difference now is that instead of running wires overhead, you have to install charging stations.

> The performance of most electric cars is abysmal

The Leaf is the only car I have driven where the wife has said, "owe! stop doing that! my eyeballs hurt!"

I sense you may be bullshitting us.

Yes. Nobody doubts the future is electric (or partially fuel cell-based). But at least for the next half decade or so, we'll still see lots of internal combustion engines being produced. There will also still be some progress in making those engines cleaner and more efficient.

As a sidenote: that's why I liked platinum and rhodium as speculative investments in 2017 and I like them again for 2018. Platinum especially has been declared dead, exactly because of this "future is imminent" sentiment and nobody will supposedly need catalytic converters anymore. Platinum has been comatose for years on end now, despite production shortages and the supply side risk coming from South Africa's politics. Most platinum mines are operating at a loss.

Most non-car folk synonymize performance with acceleration, when in fact acceleration is arguably less important than braking and cornering.

After all, what good is being able to go fast in a straight line if you can't brake or carry that speed through the corners?

Exactly. And, with very few and very expensive exceptions, electric cars are useless at this. Electric cars have objective selling points, but I cringe every time I hear someone describe them as having "good performance".

Most mid priced ICE cars are also terrible at performance. Comparing a Leaf to a performance car like a BMW or Audi is nonsensical. They are targeted at completely different market segments.

Performance can also be relative, subjectively. My daily driver, a 2004 model 2.5L turbo diesel long wheelbase six-speed auto T5 Transporter, is at the workshop waiting to have a short length of wire that runs to the starter motor replaced. I'd do it myself, but talk about an inconveniently layed out engine bay. I digress. As far as vans go, it's fun to drive and has a bed in the back!

A friend loaned me her 1999 Vectra B[1] wagon, five-speed manual 2.2L 108 kW. Compared to the van, it corners like it's on rails! With myself behind the wheel of the Vectra I reckon I'd eat the E90 320i 115 kW[2] auto she replaced it with.

So, neither of these three vehicles are performance cars, but they're all quite fun to drive. Though I do toy with the idea of getting a Miata.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Vectra#Vectra_B_(1995–200...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_3_Series_(E90)#Petrol

Thirty five million people live in Florida, where the roads were laid out using graph paper, yet they still buy, and pay good money for, sports cars where the focus is on handling. The best bang for the buck here is acceleration.

To expand on something you stated, range is still very much an issue. How even "two hundred miles" became acceptable I will never know, apparently that is what marketing was told to push but the general public isn't buying into that.

Worse, that two hundred mile range is only good in mild to warm conditions. throw in winter conditions and it plummets. plus until automakers all adopt a higher voltage charging system similar to where Porsche is going adding range will just exaggerate how long it takes to charge.

Higher voltage charging is easier than higher amperage from both the size of cables internal and external as well as cooling. a trip in even the fastest available charging cars requires an hour diversion/stop per two hundred miles on average. this needs to get down to fifteen minutes with a range pushing beyond three hundred in winter.

instead of trying to encourage employers to install chargers at work more effort should be made toward the electrification of school and city bus lines. everyone who has ever been caught behind one knows the pollution factories they appear to be. initial up front costs will be high but it will keep districts insulated from volatile gasoline and diesel prices. delivery trucks already might be headed there but government investment into this area should be by example and where better than to have children on electric buses to tell mommy and daddy

I'll take 200 miles of range and the ease of plugging in every evening at home over 1,000 miles of range and the necessity of going to a gas station.

That works as long as you never need to drive more than 100 miles from home.

If I am doing that I probably want extra cargo capacity and will want to rent a van

I think you will be right, until there is another oil price shock. Then people will flip quickly, as electricity comes from domestic sources.

In the US, much of oil can be domestic, too. In Europe, things are pretty different (except maybe Norway).

But the price of oil is tied to the global market, regardless of whether it is produced in the US.

Only consumers in Western Europe pay ~2.5 to 3 times as much for fuel due to differences in taxation.[0][1]

[0] https://www.touring.be/nl/artikels/benzineprijzen-europa [1] https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/