The EV evolution is going to take longer than we thought
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This is also seen when comparing how much Amerians drive compared to Europeans. Americans drive about twice as many miles per capita annually than EU citizens [1], which is probably related to more distant commutes in the US.. [2], e.g. average commute in 2014 was 8.79 km in the U.S., but 5.03 km Germany, and 1.68 km in France. But also, The USA is big, and we are more likely to travel by car and further than those in other countries.
This is all to say, that adoption in America will go up, but only as electric cars improve their range.
[1] https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file-americans-driv... [2] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Co...
The 16 kmiles/year quoted by the Frontier Group is not really all that much. It's an average of only 70 km per day. I know several people personally who commute daily further than that here in Norway and I see plenty of people doing it in EVs.
Again most current EVs can do at least four days of that on a single charge. Certainly my ancient 2015 Tesla S70D can and most newer cars have more range.
The mean distance probably obscures a distribution which includes a minority that drives far more than the average, it would be interesting to know the median distance too.
I've just returned to Norway from France in my Tesla. It was 2 700 km (almost 1 700 miles) and charging was not a problem.
1700 miles is two trips across Texas (which can also be done in a Tesla without a problem). I live in the US and the distances here compared to Europe still occasionally shock me.
Tesla is the only EV I’ve owned with zero range anxiety because it plots the trip - and is correct. My LEAF’s tiny battery and famous guess-o-meter made it a totally unknown when I needed to charge, and then had to figure out in PlugShare or ABRP where to charge with at least one backup nearby because of how unreliable other networks are. Too stressful.
Tesla is the ONLY good network. EVgo costs a fortune - 3x as much as a tesla supercharger near me! And EA is basically always broken.
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/the-tesla-supercharger-netw...
I test drove the Ariya and I think it had a 4 menu deep manual precondition option. Its OEM charging locator (not planner) was offline and typical legacy manufacturer built-in nav garbage.
This was the case a year ago, but they have really stepped up their game, at least in the Northeast. I now find the EA chargers to be (almost) always functional.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s
CCS also supports plug and charge if you want to set up automatic payments via your car. Even works in North America:
That's almost always too and from work in the city, so when I take it to the highway the estimated range drops like a brick. Especially speeds above 100 km/h (~60 mph) really drains the battery.
That said, if I enter the route in the Google Maps-based navigation, I find that it fairly accurately predicts SOC at the destination. So I tend to use that, or just do my own estimation.
Though, AFAIK the Ariya has an Amazon-based system, so not sure how that relates.
1) Gas consumption does not have as much variance as EV. Actually there are canceling effects because gas engines are more efficient on highways, but drag is higher. As a result the amount of fuel consumed is more predictable and therefore the range is more predictable.
2) The safety net of the "I'll fill up when pointer is near empty" habit. This can be harder for EV in exceptional trips i.e. not predictable daily commute, which is exactly where the chance of being further away from fast charging is higher.
I think 2) will get better over time and as we get more used to it. And about 1), it's pretty cool that EV are so much more efficient at slower speeds - it's a real testament for the technology.
I think I'd be more happy if my car split my range estimates into "city driving" and "highway driving", and provided those two different estimates side by side.
Since my car doesn't know where I'm going, without telling it through the nav system, that would be a much more useful approach.
Of course, that would also mean people would see the much lower range, so I guess it would affect sales to first-time EV buyers.
I was recently renting an apartment and when I asked building managers about this kind of thing they just blinked at me slowly like they had just now heard of electric cars existing.
Second, after VW built the EA network they allocated basically no money to maintain it. AFAIK the USG has not found a way to punish them for that. It's not clear to me that the USG is even aware this second crime was committed.
EDIT: Based on comment from @cure below, my information may need updating.
At least in the part of the EU I'm living public chargers are spread enough and they are rightly meant for just recharging when you are on a trip longer than the return range, issues are from their mandatory crapplications instead of just accepting a bank card, and having also an incredible price delta depending on the app/card you use (check chargemap.com/map choosing some chargers to see the prices).
The main issue is the absurdly high price of EVs HERE, because in the BRICS cost less than ICEs, the absurdly level of invasive crapware as a service, the absurd level of yearly check, actually a sw update we can do alone, prices. All this, the push toward no ownership and sucking money like a leech push people against EV because they fails to separate the child from the dirty water.
Also, let's not forget that prices of chinese EVs benefit from the massive scale economies enabled by years of subsidies and tax credits.
China is leading the world (by far) in new renewable generation.
China is the largest carbon emitter in the world, but they are also moving RAPIDLY in the right direction.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
In part because they are also the largest producer of all the shit we buy but don't account for in our carbon footprints because it's imported
> We could stop importing from them
Not without causing millions of deaths in the west as well. We've learned the hard way how much of our medical supplies depend on these imports for instance.
Here in France comparing the country's carbon emissions to China's is a common argument for not doing anything about it.
They're also adding solar at an even higher rate [1] so maybe you meant that coal as a percentage of electrical consumption peaked two years ago?
[0] https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-...
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/daily-brief/china-added-more-sol...
From your article:
> The scale of the uncertainty over the true nature of China’s coal demand means it is hard to establish whether there was an overall rise or fall in the country’s CO2 emissions in 2022. This difference could have global implications for action on climate change.
> Whether the official coal data for 2022 is correct or not, the country moved further off track against its near-term targets for carbon and energy intensity.
Also, it's measuring something different—emissions in the year—while the article I linked is talking about new coal construction. New coal construction is pretty easy to measure relative to emissions, and is a leading indicator suggesting future emissions are coming.
It's not that simple.
* The power plants are running at lower capacities: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants
* Not all coal is equal. High-volatile bituminous coals have ~5% less emissions: https://gaftp.epa.gov/ap42/ch01/s01/reference/ref_77%20c01s0...
* Some of the new plants are "clean" (not actually clean, but produce less emissions): https://globalenergyprize.org/en/2024/03/29/china-remains-wo...
* You can build newer, more efficient coal power plants (~45%) which slightly reduce the amount of coal you need to burn at older, less efficient coal power plants (~33%): https://www.google.com/search?q=how+efficient+are+newer+coal...
* ~5% of the new additions replaced retirements.
OP is acknowledging the direction / trend. The nuance is whatever central gov incentivizes. Local gov have been (and still) incentivized to use provincial power because it's in their control, it enables them to hit other good for promotion metrics without worrying about politics/dependencies. Coal is simply reliable and local gov don't even like depending on grid of adjacent provinces, especially when renewable generation has been fluctuating with extreme climate last few years. But if central gov starts hinting promotions is going to be based on enhancing cross border power, bureaucrats will start indexing on that. Economics of utility scale renewables projecting to cheaper than coal without considering externalities. Right now still in phase of building out enough renewables so grid is resilient. West-East Electricity Transfer Project is a multi decade project spanning back to the 10th 5 year plan in the 00s, once there's enough resiliency, central gov will push local gov to play better with state grid.
That means nothing if you don't scale it per capita or per total generation capacity or per GDP or something.
A sufficiently big country could possess/be-constructing both the most renewables and the most petrochemical plants at the same time.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/us-states-electric...
That's what you get when gas is dirt cheap, I guess.
The US tariffs will delay that a bit, yet the writing is on the wall - nobody can go against such an economic paradigm shift.
Definitely, how could otherwise hundreds of millions be convinced to ride 15-25 gallon gasoline bombs :)
It seems that there are already 100kwh+ batteries in the work for 500 miles range.
My favorite though have been series hybrids, and I predicted here a decade ago that such hybrids with specially built/tuned engines will dominate the market as the best of both worlds. Seems I’ve been wrong about the wide market, still hope for the niches.
It is strictly cheaper to make a car that can drive on a battery 30 km and then switch to gasoline than a pure EV that can drive 500 km and it will be so for few more years.
It's basically the best of both worlds, and not at all "two complete drivetrains"
If it's cheaper to get PHEV into more hands, and more commutes are driven on battery power, that may be a better result than trying to subsidize the production of BEVs to outcompete them
NCAP rates some Teslas higher, and some BMWs lower. So it's in the safety range for overpriced luxury cars.
IIHS hasn't tested the BYD Seal yet, because it's not sold in the US.
I've been wondering how we could ever handle everyone plugging in a 1-10kwh charger at home every night for potentially hours. Think about charging a fleet of Rivian delivery vans...
Not to mention the insane chargers required for semi-trucks.
The answer is we don't, because not everyone refuels at once, but bearjaws asked "how we could ever handle everyone plugging in a 1-10kwh charger at home every night for potentially hours", which is equally invalid.
If you want an answer to your question: look at what happens during fuel scarcity scares (like in the UK in 2020/2021ish). The answer is “we don’t.”
The UK National Grid has published several papers on the subject and their conclusion is that already planned expansion of both grids and generating capacity is more than sufficient.
Here in Norway more than 20% of private cars, large numbers of buses, ferries, and heavy good vehicles are already electric and there has been no significant impact on the ability of the grid to supply the power.
The big grocery distributor, Asko, in Oslo has three quarters of it's local vehicles electrified already and generates all the electricity they need with the 8 800 panels on the roof of the warehouse. They now have eighty Scania 45R electric heavy good vehicles with 450 kW (610 HP) continuous power, 624 kWh batteries, 44 tonne total weight.
As William Gibson said: The future's here already. It's just unevenly distributed.
See these web pages. They are in Norwegian but Google Translate does a good job.
https://elbil.no/asko-drifter-transporten-via-oslos-storste-...
https://elbil.no/verdenspremiere-hos-asko-for-elektrisk-giga...
There is zero guarantee that any targets will be met as things stand.
Because many vehicles do _not_ drive far on most days, even charging on ubiquitous 120v wall sockets replenishes electricity spent on those normal days easily.
Since 240v is common in the US, with no special requirements on pre-existing grid (everyone has stoves and dryers at 240v, for example) it's still easy to recharge after longer than normal driving days, overnight.
Where I live most commutes are 25 miles a day, or almost an entire overnight to charge. That is 7 hours of charging, per day if you drive a Model Y.
Regardless of your charging schedule, the power has to come from a local transformer and will be ADDITIONAL to the current load on the grid, you can wait 5 days but that just means more load for longer.
Transformers are typically 450kwh to 900kwh, and the power company matches capacity to demand.
This means adding another ~100kwh to your neighborhood in overnight charging not only adds to the power plant, but also all the infrastructure along the way, and most notably your transformer(s).
That is why I am curious about a deep dive, if we really want to go all electric, what all has to be upgraded? What is a reasonable schedule for a local utility and how much are we going to pay.
And then you add in the road trips and superchargers...
This is not the whole story but it contributes to why the grid doom and gloom predictions are taking longer to come true.
I'm not complaining too much since I plan to keep this car until the wheels fall off anyways, but it does seem like the accelerated depreciation of EVs versus gasoline cars is a good reason not to buy at the moment.
EDIT: I should clarify, my vehicle is a PHEV. I couldn't commit to giving up gasoline given the added convenience of being able to quickly fill up on gas for long road trips. That being said, I drive less than 10K miles a year and probably only use ~1 tank of gas every 2 months.
I guess car choice and calculation behind it is very individual. I never wanted Tesla, but got best trade—in conditions there.
I am saving a bit on repairs as well. I was spending close to $1500 a year on maintenance for the old car (but it was 8 years old and had 100K miles on it). We also had a nice tax incentive for buying EVs/PHEVs, so that helps.
Gas at the closest station to my house is currently at $3.40 (according to Google Maps)
EDIT: I don't see anywhere on my bill that I'm paying a peak rate. I do charge my car at night though, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm paying the electric company extra just to do that.
It's the medium distance trips that are more annoying. On a 400 mile trip you'd normally just drive that straight. Adding 20 minutes for a charge is sometimes annoying.
There are a million reasons to chose car x over y, but I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t have this vehicle for at least another decade.
Estimated 300 miles and actually doing 300 miles is not the same thing.
I have a level 2 charger in a box that I need to install, but so far the 12 volt charger has pretty much kept up...but my wife and I tend to need to drive more after the kids start school, so we will see if I can just return that charger or not.
Subsidizes will never work, cost is the main d river. Fossil Fuel vehicles are still looked as cheaper and always will be until the cost hits the pocket book.
Plus the cost of new EVs should be less than fossil fuel cars.