Comment by baby-yoda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by baby-yoda | Hacker News Reader

a couple other comments have touched on something ive thought about alot recently;

as ev adoption continues we are going to observe more asymmetry between older cars which are lightweight and relatively lower to the ground, and massive EVs with giant battery packs and high hood lines [0][1]

a hummer EV's battery weighs 3000 lbs and the entire vehicle weighs 9,000 lbs. a 2005 Honda Civic coupe, which is generally very reliable and likely to still be in operation 17 years later, is 2,600 lbs. the civic doesn't stand a chance in a collision with the Hummer.

of course the hummer might be a relatively lower volume vehicle but the f-150 and silverado are #1 and #3 respectively in volume; their ev counterparts are going to be all over the roads in short time. and they have similar increases in weight over their ice counterparts, 6000-7000 lbs each.

i hope i'm wrong but i don't see how the number and severity of traffic fatalities go anywhere but up for the next 5-10 years.

[0] - https://twitter.com/ajlatrace/status/1495124630868213764 [1] - https://twitter.com/DrTCombs/status/1528853211582455814

Time to invest in tire companies! A family member got quite a shock when buying winter tires for their car, the extra weight of the battery necessitated higher rated and more expensive tires.

BEVs also generally wear out tires slightly faster due to higher weight and greater motor torque compared to similarly sized ICE vehicles.

Which is why you need BEV rated tires. My 2017 FocusEV (with > 50k miles) has it's OG tires from 2017 and recently had a tire guy tell me "no it's got a lot of life left" when I thought about replacing them.

The factory tires from my Tesla only lasted 3 years. I had a Leaf for 4 years and never changed the tires.

Those are rare here but it will get fun in some European countries. Your regular license is not enough if mass is over 3500kg

To clarify for non-EU readers, that's 3,500kg fully loaded (gross vehicle weight), not just curb weight. Everything over 3,500kg requires you to get a special license and regular medical tests by a physician.

Many USA states allow up to 26000 lbs (11800 kg) on a regular driver license. (Which is awarded after one casual road test when you were 16 and each state thereafter accepts your prior license as proof of skill). Commercial operations like Amazon delivery intentionally order trucks right up to this 26K limit to avoid having to hire CDL holders (commercial driver license) and follow DOT regulations.

The bigger Prius models weigh as much as a light truck used to (when light trucks were still available). It isn't just the supersized EVs that are contributing to the bloat.

thinking back to the GM EV1, in my imagination the future was a place of efficiency and continuous improvement. some of these new EVs feel like we've gone back to the excess and somewhat laziness of the 90s (badge engineering, inefficient, grotesque).

models like the VW XL1 and BMW i3 were so exciting, as we shifted towards alternative drivetrains we could sort of "reset" what the auto market had evolved to in the last 25-30 years. they're certainly not mass market vehicles but other models could have followed their lead.

The BMW i3 could in theory be a forever car but BMW doesn't care about EVs and discontinued it without releasing a new model.

This never occurred to me before.

I'm thinking back to my time in high school, when I would see rich 16-year-olds drive up in massive SUVs or trucks. The justification parents had for buying them was that putting their kids in large cars would protect them should they ever get into an accident.

I wonder what will happen once parents like that start buying the kids of today those massive cars. Of course they will be electric.

On top of that, they’ll be able to do sub 4s 0-60, silently

In my time the rich kids drove small cars like mustangs, and the middle income kids drove beat up old farm trucks.

>them was that putting their kids in large cars would protect them should they ever get into an accident.

By killing someone else instead?

Children need slow cars that take forever to accelerate to make them patient on the road and stop them from street racing.

  This has nothing to do with EV adoption

> as ev adoption continues we are going to observe more asymmetry between older cars which are lightweight and relatively lower to the ground, and massive EVs with giant battery packs and high hood lines

  The EV equivalent of "honda Civic" will still be lighter and lower to the ground then the f-250.

The Hummer EV is a luxury vehicle with a very long range.

I suspect that mass-market EVs will have a combination of a shorter range, and use some tricks to keep the weight more manageable. Structural batteries, which integrate the battery into the frame, lower weight because the bulky part of the battery is now part of the frame. (Instead of a separate frame and battery.)

I want to appreciate your comment, and this may be off-topic possible pedantry, but the text formatting in your comment makes me so conscience of way the text looks "off" that it gets in the way of your message. Basic and common English syntax like capital letters would just go a long way to making things easier to read.

There's no style guide for internet comments and you don't know anything about another poster's potential second (or third, or fourth) language competence, disability or deficits, accessibility aids they are posting through, etc.

If you can't handle it then you'll miss some content, the same way you'll occasionally see comments in here posted in a language you don't understand. Do what feels reasonable to extract the information, or just accept that you won't and move on. I guess downvote if you really wanna.

Socially enforcing a high standard of what is essentially typesetting does nothing but discourage people from contributing who may have thoughtful responses but not the time or ability to edit them to your standards.

> ...but the text formatting in your comment makes me so conscience of way the text looks...

not to be pedantic but my text formatting makes you "a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations..."[0] is certainly interesting commentary. perhaps it should be interpreted as a compliment? thanks.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience

OTOH, I didn't even notice until you pointed it out.

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