Electric Vehicles

[Grunt67]

There's a lot of ad/ news space lately on electric vehicles. Any of you folks own one or plan too. What's your opinion of them?

Personally,  I don't really care for the idea, but it's being pushed hard.

Discuss...

[bobsguns]

As one whom has replaced a large amount of electric motors, I wouldn't own an electric vehicle for anything. 

Think about the most remote place you've been in TN (or anywhere) in a vehicle. Then imagine your battery zonking out. Now what?

Yes, I know internal combustion engines can fail as well but they almost always give some sort of issue before they crap out, IMO. 

Pass.

[xsubsailor]

From what I understand, a lot of the raw materials for the batteries come from China so I think I'll pass. The same thing applies to solar panels. 

[KahrMan]

The new Rivian electric trucks has caught my attention. They are pretty cool. There are several good videos on YouTube reviewing it. 

[Grayfox54]

When they make one that can go 600 miles on a charge, run 80 MPH and recharges in an hour, maybe I'll consider it. 

Nah, not really. 

[Johnny Rotten]

I'm sure in my life time we all will most likely own one.

EV are super quick YT has 100's of videos of Tesla beating Vipers, Hellcats, Vets on drag strips by a lot.

that reminds me

The new 2022 Hummer EV has 1000HP and 11,000 FT/ LBS of torque, not sure what nut head engineer came up with those numbers, but I know GM was testing in MOAB and they came up on several H1 and declined to wheel with them.

 

[Grunt67]

9 minutes ago, Johnny Rotten said:

I'm sure in my life time we all will most likely own one.

EV are super quick YT has 100's of videos of Tesla beating Vipers, Hellcats, Vets on drag strips by a lot.

that reminds me

The new 2022 Hummer EV has 1000HP and 11,000 FT/ LBS of torque, not sure what nut head engineer came up with those numbers, but I know GM was testing in MOAB and they came up on several H1 and declined to wheel with them.

 

That kind of speed/ performance is nice on a drag strip, or the desert. Not very useful on the highway. I know that kind of stuff sells, bragging rights I suppose.

[FUJIMO]

58 minutes ago, xsubsailor said:

From what I understand, a lot of the raw materials for the batteries come from China so I think I'll pass. The same thing applies to solar panels. 

Correct. And contrary to what some believe this is also why we left a certain lithium rich area not too long ago . BBB LGB FJB

Edited November 17, 2021 by FUJIMO

[deerslayer]

I do find it amusing that the left thinks electric cars are the savior of the environment while also believing that energy is evil.  Where do these electric cars get their juice?

[Swamp ash]

An electric motor can put the power to the wheels, quickly.  I think this will be a great option in the very near future.

I say this being pretty old-school when it comes to cars . I still drive manual transmission cars and love to wind the gears out.

 

[leroy]

The " electric  " thing is just another approach to picking the consumer's pocket by lying about the environment.  Lotsa " children of lower estate " believe that electric vehicles are cleaner.  They ain't, unless the energy is produced from nuclear plants.  The electric vehicle will not be a success until the battery charging, performance, n driving range problem is solved. 

Watch the electric heavy truck business.  If it works, then other electric vehicles will be viable.  I'm guessin that I'll be takin my rest by the time they are a viable contender to gas n diesel machines.  I'm now in my 75 th winter. 

Dont trade your gas/diesel machine just yet. 

By the way, I spent 38 years in the electric utility business.  

lectric leroy.  

[monkeylizard]

If I was in the market for a new car, I'd look hard at electric. Plug in each day to keep it topped up, or once a week (if that) if you have a short commute or rarely drive like me now that I work from home full time. Never needing to stop for gas again on the local around town stuff would be nice.

It would be a little annoying on longer trips.Take a Model 3 extended range for an example car. Assume I start out fully charged, that's going to give me ~350 miles. Then I need to find a supercharger to get 80% (280 miles) and that will take about 30 minutes to charge. It would take another 30m to get to 100%, so I'd take the 80% and move on. I recently did a trip to Tampa of about 800 miles each way. I'd have to make two stops to charge up to 80%, costing me an hour and I'd arrive close to empty again, needing another supercharger, or at least a regular charger near my hotel for overnight duty. Compared to ~15 minutes for three stops to fill up my Wrangler, or ~10 minutes for two stops to fill up a car with way better gas mileage like . . . well, about anything except a truck.

But to be fair, road trips like that are not super frequent for me, and the convenience of an EV for daily use may be worth the hour or two it's going to cost me in a day's driving on those occasional road trips.

It's not just the no-gas thing that would be nice. Think no more oil changes, transmission fluid changes, or coolant flushes, plus fewer brake jobs. No more leaking oil seals, spark plug changes, or any of dozens of other things that can go bad with an ICE engine, transmission, exhaust system, fuel system, or emissions control systems. The only maintenance items on a Model 3 are tire rotation and cabin air filter. They also suggest lubing the brake caliper pistons and testing the brake fluid, but we all know the caliper parts get lubed when pads get changed and fluid gets changed once a decade, if that.

I know an electric motor can go bad, and battery packs over time lose their ability to hold as much juice, but overall it's going to be less hassle and more reliable. If not yet, then very soon.

 

I'm more interested in the self-driving side of things than the EV. I LOOOOVE to drive, but commuting and mind-numbing Interstate road trips are not "driving". They ARE the perfect setting for letting the car take over. It doesn't have to be perfect, just better than humans. And it's pretty dang close to outperforming hairless apes applying makeup, eating a McBurger, drinking a $tarbuck$, and checking FaceTwit while attempting to operate a motor vehicle. I know all the legal liability stuff still needs to get sorted, but I for one welcome our chauffeur overlords. . . just not on The Dragon

Edited November 17, 2021 by monkeylizard

[eRay]

I ordered a new Ford Maverick truck a couple of months ago. It is in transit and should be here next week. I could have ordered it in a hybrid that gets 42 MPG. I paid $1,100.00 extra to get it with a standard gasoline engine instead of the hybrid. I expect that one day electric automobiles will be the norm but at 70 years of age, I doubt that I will be here to see that day. I think electric cars are still very much in the experimental stage and I will let someone else do the experimenting.

[Swamp ash]

3 minutes ago, Eray said:

I ordered a new Ford Maverick truck a couple of months ago. It is in transit and should be here next week. I could have ordered it in a hybrid that gets 42 MPG. I paid $1,100.00 extra to get it with a standard gasoline engine instead of the hybrid. I expect that one day electric automobiles will be the norm but at 70 years of age, I doubt that I will be here to see that day. I think electric cars are still very much in the experimental stage and I will let someone else do the experimenting.

Congratulations. I'm interested in hearing about the Maverick after it arrives. 

[mikegideon]

47 minutes ago, leroy said:

The " electric  " thing is just another approach to picking the consumer's pocket by lying about the environment.  Lotsa " children of lower estate " believe that electric vehicles are cleaner.  They ain't, unless the energy is produced from nuclear plants.  The electric vehicle will not be a success until the battery charging, performance, n driving range problem is solved. 

Watch the electric heavy truck business.  If it works, then other electric vehicles will be viable.  I'm guessin that I'll be takin my rest by the time they are a viable contender to gas n diesel machines.  I'm now in my 75 th winter. 

Dont trade your gas/diesel machine just yet. 

By the way, I spent 38 years in the electric utility business.  

lectric leroy.  

Yep. Right now, that high tech Tesla is mostly coal powered. Gotta give credit for a high quality lie. Musk is a physicist. He gets it. He's just gonna cash in.

[Omega]

My daughter bought  a Hyundai hybrid, now the wife is in the market for one.  The Hyundai comes with a great warranty, so should be ok, but I still prefer an all gas motor, so if/when I replace my Tacoma, it will be another Tacoma with all gas engine.

[deerslayer]

1 hour ago, monkeylizard said:

If I was in the market for a new car, I'd look hard at electric. Plug in each day to keep it topped up, or once a week (if that) if you have a short commute or rarely drive like me now that I work from home full time. Never needing to stop for gas again on the local around town stuff would be nice.

It would be a little annoying on longer trips.Take a Model 3 extended range for an example car. Assume I start out fully charged, that's going to give me ~350 miles. Then I need to find a supercharger to get 80% (280 miles) and that will take about 30 minutes to charge. It would take another 30m to get to 100%, so I'd take the 80% and move on. I recently did a trip to Tampa of about 800 miles each way. I'd have to make two stops to charge up to 80%, costing me an hour and I'd arrive close to empty again, needing another supercharger, or at least a regular charger near my hotel for overnight duty. Compared to ~15 minutes for three stops to fill up my Wrangler, or ~10 minutes for two stops to fill up a car with way better gas mileage like . . . well, about anything except a truck.

I suspect that, like gas powered vehicles, the mileage rating is a bit optimistic.  Also, how do you charge it if a storm knocks out the power for a few days?

[monkeylizard]

1 hour ago, deerslayer said:

I suspect that, like gas powered vehicles, the mileage rating is a bit optimistic.  Also, how do you charge it if a storm knocks out the power for a few days?

Talking with a few Tesla owners, the mileage seems to be pretty close.

As for the power being out, that's also a problem for gas pumps. Except with an EV, I'd always be starting with a full charge after having it plugged in when the power went out, as opposed to an ICE where my gas level could be anywhere from full to fumes. Some EVs can function as a big battery for your house (F-150 lightning can do it) but of course that depletes the range on the car. In time, though, I think the costs of batteries and solar will continue to fall and make buying a solar roof + power wall economical enough that I can install both and I won't care when grid power is down, no matter what kind of motors are in my car at the time.

Edited November 17, 2021 by monkeylizard

[jpx2rk]

Owned a Ford C Max hybrid for 18-24 months.  Wife drove it as a DD when she worked ( 4 miles RT).  She liked it for about 2 months, then got tired of all the dash/display info, etc., and did not like the 4 cylinder gas engine kicking on/off at times depending on the state of the battery charge.  Bitched about it for the rest of the time we owned it.  It got 35 mpg city, 40 mpg on the hwy, was fairly comfy. 

The car had a bad habit of going in to deep sleep mode or hibernation if you did not drive it almost daily (after she retired) .  If not driven for a couple or three days, open the drivers door, and none of the dash lights would come on, etc.  Totally dead.  Had to have it boosted 2-3x's, and bought one of  those portable battery packs that's capable of boosting cars/trucks, damn car never went into deep sleep mode after that.  Never did trust the car after that, even tho the dealer put 2 new 12v batteries (the starting battery) due to testing bad.  Some sort of electrical gremlin I guess.  

Wife would not drive another hybrid/electric car, I would not mind a hybrid for a grocery getter, etc., but not an all electric one.  While I like Cracker Barrel, I don't want to eat there just to charge up the car on long trips.  It will be decades before there are sufficient charging stations for "millions" of all electric cars to get anywhere on time.  And where will all of this additional electricity required come from, TX almost froze up solid earlier this year, so..

I also wonder how the hybrid F150 or the all electric F150 will actually tow anything, it will just be an oversized family car like most trucks are now.  Those batteries will take up payload capacity, so....

[A.J. Holst]

I've heard tell if we all go electric, our power grid is insufficient.

No idea if true, false or simple fear mongering.

For those saving the environment, what magic source charges those EVs?

I'm not opposed to electric but I drive 3000-4000 miles per month for work. Taking time to charge for a  trip to Jackson, TN or MS is not viable in my world.

A few years ago Cadillac was playing around with small generators powering electric motors / charging batteries; haven't heard anything else about that technology.

[gregintenn]

I’m not opposed to driving an electric vehicle once it proves to be economical and convenient for me. They should be low maintenance, quiet, and have fewer moving parts to break.

I do not believe they help the environment. I also do not believe we have the capacity at this point to produce enough electricity to charge millions of electric vehicles each night. This is a problem that needs to be addressed now, as I believe electric cars are the future.

[Erik88]

12 hours ago, bobsguns said:

Think about the most remote place you've been in TN (or anywhere) in a vehicle. Then imagine your battery zonking out. Now what?

How is this any different than a gas powered vehicle having trouble?  You're SOL either way. 

 

[runco]

Though this has been a recent discussion in my house with my teen sons, I do stand stubborn to change to electric vehicles in the next 10-20 years, but reasoning through it, I may have no choice, gas stations will have to embrace the technology shift, and supply and demand principals will kick in, and gas stations that were once everywhere will become like easter eggs, and old stubborn gizzards like me, will have to ditch gas power vehicles for fancy golf carts because the drive to the local gas stations will be a road trip.  

I guess if I had lived 100 years ago, and was plowing with a mule and plow, and there were these new fuel combustion powered tractors being stubborn I would have continued with the old mules, but reflecting how silly would that have been.  

[DL126]

10 hours ago, Eray said:

I ordered a new Ford Maverick truck a couple of months ago. It is in transit and should be here next week. I could have ordered it in a hybrid that gets 42 MPG. I paid $1,100.00 extra to get it with a standard gasoline engine instead of the hybrid. I expect that one day electric automobiles will be the norm but at 70 years of age, I doubt that I will be here to see that day. I think electric cars are still very much in the experimental stage and I will let someone else do the experimenting.

I've had a hybrid on order since the middle of June.
Maybe I'll get it by next summer ...? 

[BHunted]

I'm not a fan of total electric vehicles either as someone mentioned. But they are working on 5 minute rechargers. Problem is dissipation of heat from the charger/cable and none of them are pushing that amperage because of it. One of the universities are working out a solution. I would also like to see them go further on a charge. That's not happening yet either. Then if they do, will they put 5 min charging stations all over the country. Can't see that happening. Still need coal which Biden is against. He do have nuke plants and the idiots are against them too. Anyone got $8Gs for a replacement battery when it finally fails? Yeesh.

In March I bought a 2021 F150 Platinum Powerboost Hybrid. Complete with all the bells and whistles including an onboard 7.2KW Generator. The thing rides like a Cadillac, yet kicks ass and bet a Raptor in a video race review for power and speed. But other than feeling like I'm driving my couch in total comfort, it gets 24 mpg plus, (usually get at least 25+),  no matter where I am. That's 24 city/highway and a 30.6 gallon tank.

I'm content to stay at this level. I can care less about carbon footprints, green new deals which are bs or anything of the like. That's mother natures dept and she's fixed what us fooked up humans break......