Alt text:

An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
126 points

“On the other hand gas has a much higher energy density than batteries and a much faster refuel rate.”

permalink
report
reply
19 points

Are those two things actually important?

Electric motors are a lot more efficient, and battery technology is quickly approaching the place where you can get the same range with an electric motor as with an ICE.

As for refuel rate, I spend no time waiting for my car to charge because it charges at home while I’m sleeping, so the refuel rate doesn’t matter.

Plus the technology to battery swap is well in use for electric vehicles (see Nio, who have thousands of battery swap stations in China and some in Europe too). 3 mins and you have a full battery.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-6 points
*

Are those two things actually important?

yes, they are. they make difference between actually usable technology and engineer’s dream.

Electric motors are a lot more efficient, and battery technology is quickly approaching the place where you can get the same range with an electric motor as with an ICE.

i doubt we even have enough rare metals for 8 or 16 billion batteries. most of them are being mined in politically unstable or to western civilization unfriendly countries, with terrible effect on the environment.

efficiency matters, it is not a question of how good single battery is.

As for refuel rate, I spend no time waiting for my car to charge because it charges at home while I’m sleeping, so the refuel rate doesn’t matter.

oh good. YOU have it solved, so the rest of the world does not matter, i assume…? fuck all these people, right?

https://i.imgur.com/krFICor.png

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Hey mate I’m just here for some friendly discussion, I’m not here to argue until I’m blue in the face.

There is a difference between your above points and the original claim.

Fuel density doesn’t matter, what matters is how far you can drive on a charge.

Charge time doesn’t matter if you can swap a battery in 3 minutes instead of waiting to charge.

For your new point of rare earth materials, this isn’t related to the original energy density or charge time points, but high density batteries that don’t use rare earth metals already exist, the problem is cost. That will change over time.

Also you’re ignoring that fossil fuels are also dug out of the ground.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

most of them are being mined in politically unstable or to western civilization unfriendly countries, with terrible effect on the environment.

Has that ever stopped everyone, though?

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

It matters to people who drive more during the day than their range allows. They don’t want to wait 20 minutes for the car to charge every time they venture 300km out and back /s

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Why /s? Road trips are a thing, and you’d be hard pressed to find a combo restaurant/charging station that’s along your path.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

Although own an electric car, I believe range is still an issue. I was specifically addressing fuel density and charging time. EVs have their issues, but I believe they will be solved over time even though they are unlikely to beat an ICE in fuel density or charge rate for a long time. But I don’t think those things are actually important, because the problem is solved in a different way.

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

Why do people still pretend it takes longer than 20 minutes to get a 50% charge increase?

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Are those two things actually important?

For some people? Absolutely.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Yes, for people who can’t charge at home. I’d love to swap to electric, but 1 hour trip to go charge the car at the nearest charging station is not realistic - especially since I’d need to do it twice as often as 10min trip to refuel.

Also there’s the EV prices, starting at 2-3 times more than my current whip lol

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

My point is that we should be focused on the outcomes we want. It isn’t really important that fossil fuels are a lot more energy dense if the electric cars can travel twice as far. They can’t, but I’d be willing to bet we will get to that point with fossil fuels still being more energy dense.

But also as I mentioned in the comment you relied to, Nio have a vast network of battery swap stations where you can get a full charge in a couple of minutes, the same as filling up at a gas station.

The price of EVs are a problem, and not the only problem, but my point was that the specific things mentioned don’t stop us having better EVs than ICEs, because we will get the same outcome in a different way.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

This is exacerbated by that battery technology is at its limit, and the battery companies are unwilling to drop the battery price.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Yes, somewhat.

Not as much, to most people, as most people think though.

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

PHEVs for the win.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

On the one hand the Nokia 3310’s battery lasts a week. On the other hand the iPhone 15…

Just plug your car in when you’re not using it like you’d charge your phone overnight. It’s only a problem if you can’t charge at home (due to on street parking and no charging facilities on that street) and you can’t charge somewhere you usually take your car (eg a workplace).

permalink
report
parent
reply
-4 points

Nope,it’s a problem in many other scenarios

If i ride to vacation to a country with no charging infrastucture, if I want to ride to the mountains where it is subzero and my range drops dramatically, if I go to a place where it’s 38 deree celsius and I need AC my range is pretty much fucked up… (not to mention that close to remote places like cool beaches there is no charging station)

If I want to have a road trip… i suddenly becomes a planning issue

There are still so many things that are complicated by having a EV, and I don’t need the extra complications

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

Dude…

Norway is incredibly sparsely populated and has an adoption rate of 80%+. We also have stupid cold winters, loads of fucking mountains and require AC in summer.
I’ve driven through Europe twice with no more than 2 minutes of planning in an app.

Your comment makes me think you have no experience with EV’s at all and are spreding false claims.

There are literally two scenarios where an EV is not better than ICE (if purchased new today).

One is for people frequently traveling far beyond the cars range and the other is for people without access to AC charging at all.

And no, I’m not a EV lover/gasoline hater. I ride a motorcycle powered by dinosaur juice too. I just like having 400+ BHP and 700 Nm of torque in a car priced like a Toyota Avensis, and a full tank every single time I leave my driveway with said full tank costing me <$5.

You should want that too unless you belong to one of the two exeption groups above.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

So you agree that we should heavily invest in building EV charging infrastructure?

permalink
report
parent
reply
94 points

It’s exactly this. Convenience. We’ve become accustomed to how convenient it is and don’t want to be put out.

On the other hand, it’s super convenient to never go to a gas station again, and to wake up to a full tank. So if you drive less than 60 miles a day, and have acess to another car for long trips, an electric is even more convenient.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

it’s super convenient to never go to a gas station again, and to wake up to a full tank

But, to make that possible, you basically have to have a “gas station” at home. If you own your own house you can modify it to install a charging spot. If you rent, you might not have that option.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

All EVs come with Level 1 chargers that plug in to your standard house outlet, NEMA 5-15R. If there’s an outlet nearby you can charge your car.

That can still be difficult for apartment renters, but there’s no need to modify your house.

permalink
report
parent
reply
45 points

That’s basically 90% of every car owner.

It’s one of those things where people feel like they’re going to take a road trip every weekend, but most people are just using their car to commute to and from work and maybe take one or two longer trips per year. The time saved by not having to stop at a gas station throughout the the year is less than the additional time taken at a fast charging station for the rare road trip.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

It took me a while to take the plunge, but I’m never going back

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points
*
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

Unfortunately, people tend to buy vehicles to best accomplish 1% of their driving. I live in the suburbs and almost every house has a giant pickup parked in front. Not because people are in the construction business and need to haul a lot of stuff, but because once a year they might go to Home Depot and it feels good to put their two bags of mulch in the back.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Or just use the clothes dryer circuit… Charge the car overnight… Get all the range.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

You don’t even need the clothes dryer circuit, the vast majority of people don’t drive enough in a day to need anything more than a standard 15a outlet

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

I wonder if looking at the system as a whole for both systems would reveal a different difference. (infra needed to transport and fill those gas station tanks vs infra needed for level 3 charging stations)

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

If you don’t drive for work–and I mean get paid to drive hundreds of miles every day, not just a long commute–or take a road trip every month, and have a place to charge at night (most people do, at least in North America), then an EV is just better.

Otherwise, a plug-in hybrid or a “gasoline boosted EV” like a Volt is sufficient. ICE cars for regular people shouldn’t have even existed once the Volt proof of concept was proven!

permalink
report
parent
reply

xkcd

!xkcd@lemmy.world

Create post

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Community stats

  • 1.5K

    Monthly active users

  • 286

    Posts

  • 6K

    Comments

Community moderators