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Comment by raychis | Hacker News Reader

EV batteries may be lasting far longer than most buyers expected but are consumers really going to trust the data over the headlines? There has been such a propaganda attack on EVs that it will take a long time to overcome that.

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We had much of the same skepticism and anti-EV propaganda here in Norway a decade ago, when EV's started becoming popular. The usual claims was that the batteries would have to be replaced every five years, the cars would stop working in the winters, the batteries are fire hazards, the power grid won't support everyone buying EV's, etc.. All of which turned out to not be true.

Today the market share for EV's is 98% and they account for the majority of the total number of cars on the road! The people who bough 1st. generation EV's as a number two car a decade ago chose EV's as their main car before long. My own vehicles are 7 and 12 years old and holding up well, despite the 12 year old having inferior battery chemistry compared to modern cars.

Change isn't always easy or smooth, but this one is inevitable.

98% of NEW EVs. But the total market share of the fleet is about 1/3. Impressive. If EV share is 90% in a decade I wonder if Norway will see fuel stations being torn down.

I'd imagine trucks would still be diesel, so it'd probably make sense just to remove some of the pumps and replace them with rapid chargers. I doubt the fuel stations themselves will disappear, just cater to a different market.

OTOH in the UK at least, I think public charging is way too expensive compared to home charging, so I think most public charging is done out of necessity on long journeys, so the number of people using chargers would probably be significantly lower than number of people filling up with fuel.

Electric semi trucks have appeared from all major European manufacturers in the last years and I expect them to become dominant even quicker than electric cars on simple cost grounds. Electricity is cheaper than diesel and due to favorable regulations in Europe, for many use cases there is little to no time lost charging and usually also no loss in load capacity.

Good point actually. I guess the maximum 8 driving hours per day works well if they can find a rest point near a charging station.

According to YouTuber Bjorn Nyland, some such as Circle-K had already installed charging stations and are now removing some pumps and replacing them with chargers while adding even more charging stalls.

Thanks. The video was interesting.

Yeah, it's amazing how fast the transition has been. Many gas stations are or have already reallocated space from gas pumps to charging stations, and new stations are designed to accommodate EV's. Take a look at this station as an example - it's already five years old at this point: https://tinyurl.com/4y8u36m2

I should have been more accurate in my "majority" claim; it refers to EV's being the most common type of car compared to gas or diesel. Source: https://tinyurl.com/ycke45dy

The black PR has been very effective. I own an EV and the first question I always get from non-EV people when they find out is "…but what about the range, isn't that a problem?", while the second one is invariably "but what about the battery, I heard it only lasts a year or two and it's so expensive to replace!".

The myths are now strong and it will indeed take a long time to dispel them.

the propaganda works because we are all familiar with the smartphone battery degradation after 2 years, so it seems logical that same thing will happen with car batteries

> we are all familiar with the smartphone battery degradation after 2 years

I haven’t experienced this for years.

It was very common in the 2012-2018 era. Batteries have gotten larger (less cycles) and better (sustain more cycles before losing capacity) since then.

Also phones don't have the same sophisticated circuitry or devices as a car to keep batteries in an optimal state, e.g. Nissan Leaf gen 1, which had significant range losses (on top of having a small range to begin with).

This is very true. There's also a habit where people are reluctant to get their vehicles batteries low as well. Folks seem reluctant to get below 20%. I think it comes from learned behavior from smartphones.

I will happily arrive at a supercharger with 1%.

I mean, we have an EV and you do have to think about range if you're going over 100mi away and time is tight (eg you have young children, appointments, etc)

When I can throw 100mi into my car in 5 minutes without having to do backflips to get the charger to start, or drive out of my way to specific chargers, and not pay 20 times the market electricity rate... Then people will stop worrying about it.

I do think we'll get there with new EVs (800V platforms look amazing), but it's not going to be retroactive. There are lots of EVs in used circulation where range will be a conscious consideration for another decade or two.

The early generation Nissan Leafs (no battery cooling) did most of the work to tar EVs longevity. It's not propaganda. They were shit.

I am confused by your comment. Any EV with a 250+ mile range and your scenario is moot. You just go.

Had an EV since 2018, range is never a concern.

My only concern is that traditional American car manufacturers still suck at making EVs.

> Any EV...

Well if you're going to limit the universe to a set of cars that can drive far enough. Sure, new premium EVs bring far less range anxiety.

Used, budget EVs have both longevity and range issues. Used, budget ICE vehicles do not. It's important to remember that the market isn't just $50k+ vehicles.

And cars on the limit cause the most hand-wringing. Did you plug in last night? Do we stop early or at a meal time? You plan your day around it. It's not insurmountable but it exists.

If batteries are actually lasting, then it's easy to counter the propaganda. Manufacturers simply need to make sure batteries are replaceable and offer guarantees that they'll be replaced on the manufacturer's dime if they degrade.

That's easy to say when you aren't the one considering adding a huge liability to the companies bottom line.

There are also some elements of EV ownership where they require some TLC, like not overcharging them when doing mostly local journeys, not using rapid charging more than necessary etc. If manufacturers were carrying the can it would be easy to let these things go out of the window.

Saying, "Oh, you just have to baby it and it'll probably be fine!" is probably not the best way to counter claims that EV batteries are unreliable.

Also, consumers currently are the ones taking on liability in adopting new technologies. That's one reason why EV adoption has been a gradual thing. Offer certainty to consumers and they'll look at what they have to gain instead of focusing on what they might lose.

> That's easy to say when you aren't the one considering adding a huge liability to the companies bottom line.

Obliging companies to make repairable products? Removing their right to lock everyone into disposability and overconsumption? And even worse - trimming a sliver of their profits? Damn right, buddy: we can't be having that.

Those are completely orthogonal to accepting all of the risk, from the point of view of a CEO, of battery failures for cars you sold 10 years ago.

But yes, making things repairable is really important. And, I certainly have concerns that the danger of high voltage batteries will soon be used to introduce so much regulatory burden that it becomes impossible for individuals and small companies to repair them.

I'll just caution that new things are often over-built to some degree. Then "engineering" is often how much margin they can squeeze-out while still hitting their warrantee targets.

General Motors built an ignition switch for decades which worked mostly just fine. Then they built one so crappy that they killed a bunch of people. Only to save 25 cents or whatever.

EVs depend heavily on 'early adopter evangelism'. I wouldn't read too much into this.

In late 2022, I moved into a new semi-detached house in a small project of 33 such houses total. Back then, there was precisely 1 EV here, parked openly.

This has grown to 6 in the meantime. It seems that the segment was growing even before Hormuz, propaganda or no.

Although I have had rechargeable batteries in gadgets for decades, I would not like to have an EV parked in a garage beneath my bedroom, juicing up with many kilowatts, every night.

No amount of fire exits would help, I mean, what about my stuff?!?

No amount of insurance would cover personal belongings that could get lost, so that means stress from the stupid EV.

The technology might be generally proven (the EV could be a Toyota Prius variant) but the current iteration could be another Note 7, there is no knowing for sure.

I assure you it is not propaganda or TikTok that makes me wary of EV batteries, or any grudge, it is just that I have a different set of circumstances to the guy with a separate garage for housing an EV a safe distance away.

It took an extra decade for hospitals to allow mobile phones on their premises, they just had a different risk assessment. It wasn't propaganda that made them enforce such a ban.

Hence, although it is tempting to blame 'enemy propaganda', there is a whole spectrum of risk assessment, based on different people and different circumstances, so it will take a while, with battery chemistry essentially static for a decade before some get won over.

I hope you do not have an ice vehicle parked in your house currently, as these tend to burn much more often…

You are aware that there are multiple different chemistries, right? Go look at people drilling into LFP batteries on YouTube.

ICE cars are not immune to fires either - there are lots of recalls due to faults in the 12V systems causing fires even when parked.

No one throws Duracell during riots for a reason. Where as a small bottle, half filled with petrol, and a lit rag makes a pretty good anti-tank weapon.

A car with a tank full of gas is basically a big bomb.

I'd rather sleep over the electric car.

I can't remember an automaker ever doing a recall for an ICE vehicle that would spontaneously combust while parked. Maybe it happened at some point (ICE vehicles have been around for a long time), but there have been several for EVs. The probably is undoubtedly caused in part by the fact that EVs are charged while parked, whereas ICE vehicles are generally just sitting there, turned off.

You can't remember it because it's so common it doesn't raise any media interest:

ICE vehicles: ~174,000–200,000 fires/year (1,500–1,530 per 100,000 sold).

EVs: ~25 fires per 100,000 sold (hundreds per year total).

Is this referring to recalls related to defective vehicles? Also, EVs are on average much newer than ICE vehicles. I would assume that most ICE vehicles that spontaneously combust are not newer ones.

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