700
Automakers must build cheaper, smaller EVs to spur adoption, report says
(arstechnica.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
700 points (98.1% liked)
Technology
59414 readers
1401 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
They need to just build hybrids until batteries advance further. Either ones that will last 25 years with 80+% capacity remaining, or lighter more power dense batteries that can more easily and cheaply be replaced.
A 1500Lb battery that costs $10,000 and requires half disassembling the vehicle in order to replace That goes bad after 15 years is a pretty shit thing.
I have an 08 prius with 240,000 miles on it. The 75 Lb Battery went bad last year. I bought a new one from toyota for $1,900 and installed it myself in an afternoon. If the gas motor goes out on me (they will typically go 400,000 miles if cared for correctly) a rebuilt one with a 5 year warranty is around $1400. That's not in most people's "diy" zone but it's a 7 to 9 labor hour job, so just call it $3,000.
All things much cheaper and easier than replacing an all electric battery, and no range issues.
Let's just do some checking here to counter your argument
All evs sold in America have 8year/100,000mi warranty on battery, also these are ev top of the line batteries, not the junk that goes into most toys that burn out in a few years, these are good for 300,000mi+ before the 80% capacity, which is not at all a cause for replacement
But for your cost of ownership argument, if you drove a Prius for 400,000mi as claimed, at a likely/optimistic mpg of 50mpg, that's 8,000 gallons of fuel, which over the last decade has probably averaged at least close to 3$/g, depending of course. That's 24,000$. Just in fuel. Now you have say 40$ oil changes every 6,000 miles, that's another 2,600$, you did a nicad battery replacement because Toyota was totally fine putting that junk in there, another 1,500$
Totalled up to 28,100$. But that potential , not guarantee, 10,000$ battery replacement is too expensive. Literally could have bought an ev for the price of the running costs for an ice
I mean, you're not counting the fact that the electricity isn't free either - and KWH costs are just going up. It's debatable how you ought to cost out the electrical work to put in a charger, and the charger itself. I really have no idea about the lifespan of the chargers, so it might not last a full 15 years out in the elements, it might last 50+ years.
The charger is just a few solenoids very simple device, and they don't get switched with current flowing. So probably last forever, for wall mounted hard wired ones at least.
True I did not count cost of electricity, because it's extremely hard to guess. Some places are .04$/kwh, some are .45/kwh, some are free.
What if you had free charging at work? Or apartment, or had solar, it could be completely free
I mean, I guess work could also just give me a gas credit card and pay that, but I have my doubts that'll become common. And yea, I left out solar because again, first it's impractical for a very large number of people (they don't have property to put up solar panels), and where it is possible it's another tens of thousands. I'm not even sure I'd call that a capital investment as I see lifespans for the solar panels being near the lifespans of cars, or at most 2x if you take the 20ish year estimate and take 10 years as a car lifetime, both of which seem conservative to me. Then there's the road taxes that as EVs become more popular, ICE will no longer subsidize completely via gas taxes, so that illusory savings will switch, and as they're updating the laws and changing mediums, I bet that's where local governments will find a way to increase that tax to make up for the impossibility of increasing the gas road tax due to politics - with the EV switch there's enough smoke and mirrors to get that through.
I still believe EVs can be cheaper than ICE, but it's going to work out to be far less than "advertised" by the early adopters who got all the subsidies, some unintentional.