[Jason Lattimer]

Hey all,

I was having a discussion about electric cars with a family member, and I have a hard time convincing people they work and are better in every way than the ICE they are driving.

I started realizing, we need to get the word out about electric cars. Most people have bought into the lie that they don't work and that no one wants one. The major auto makers have convinced people they neeeed 300 mile ranges.

My father thinks it will be such a HUGE chore to plug the damn thing in every night. Remember he is in his late 60's and was a child of the musclecar era. Owned most of them I think. I guess some people will just be a lost cause. I cannot wait to see his face when I drive up in an EV.

[1clue]

Truth be told, I will still need an ICE-powered truck or other big-engined beastie. I regularly pull a 20 foot trailer with a load on it, and I haul it sometimes over 1000 miles in a day, fairly frequently over 100 miles.

What I want an EV for is for the daily commute and all that local running around. For that, the smaller the better. That's why I'm focusing on an inverted trike using bicycle rules.

As for the pain of plugging it in, how about the pain of driving all the way to the gas station?

If he's a muscle car guy though, he's not going to want an EV. There's no replacement for the rolling thunder. I'm not really a motor-head, but there's something very appealing about a genuine American muscle car with a big block and 1000+ hp and drag tires.

[Jason Lattimer]

You're right about the musclecar guy thing. People like him will never like EV's. I like all cars. Personally I wanted a jet car when I grew up but anyways. Most people don't know about the benefits. ICE vehicles will always have a place for work and hauling, but for commuting they are great.

[Qer]

Originally Posted by 1clue

Truth be told, I will still need an ICE-powered truck or other big-engined beastie. I regularly pull a 20 foot trailer with a load on it, and I haul it sometimes over 1000 miles in a day, fairly frequently over 100 miles.

Yeah, I don't try to sell the EV as a one size fits all-solution, but admits that there's limitations too. It seems to go down easier than "EV's are the future!"-reasoning. I think I've actually convinced most of my colleges, friends and family that for commuting they're superior to ICE's but that for long trips they would have to rent a car for the saved gas money or go for a hybrid instead.

My main argument against ICE's are that they're not a good solution but a good enough solution that just fit well enough for people to accept the situation, despite them being inefficient and having a horrible mile cost. It usually takes some arguing but I can be very persuative.

[Jason Lattimer]

I agree they have limitations but always try to point out that they are far superior for day to day commuting. Problem is most people don't realize how relatively maintenance free they are.

[Telco]

Ahem, motorheads don't like EVs? I'm a motorhead, who just a few years ago was working on one of those 1000HP beasties, but the money wasn't there. Being married with children requires certain sacrifices, and my biggest one was the 8 second quarter mile pickup truck. But now, I'm wanting to see if I can build the same truck, only with electric drive. There's just something about max torque at 0RPM that appeals.

EVs are also not superior to ICE engines, at least at this time. Speed, range and payload are limited. You can have a super fast EV that requires a recharge after a single quarter mile race, or you can poke along like a turtle and go a few miles. Except for very few exceptions, a 50 mile range is all you can expect. Recharging requires hours. Any ICE, on the other hand, can go up to its max speed at any time, can go up to 400 miles on a single "charge" of gasoline, can haul thousands of pounds in additional to passengers, and "recharges" in less than 10 minutes. If you have an EV you can't just up and go across the country at a moment's notice. And these are the problems with the technology. Being superior at one requirement cannot offset being terrible at every other requirement.

The American public is simply not going to accept the electric vehicle until it can go 300 miles at 75MPH with the whole family on a single charge, then take a full recharge in 10-15 minutes while Mommy takes the kiddies to the can. While an EV makes perfect sense on a board of like-minded individuals who are willing and (and this part is important) able to build their own, most of the motoring public really have no idea what goes on under their hoods and wouldn't know a wrench from last Tuesday. Maintenance is not an issue either, because they either hire the work out, or will trade their car in when the warranty runs out. Essentially the American public wants a vehicle that can meet all their needs all the time, because for the most part one vehicle is all they can afford to buy, insure and operate.

I really think the automakers are going at the EV in the correct way, by introducing them as hybrids. People still get the range and utility of an ICE, but they also start getting a taste of the economy of electricity. Hybrids normally get 10+MPG better than their ICE only companions (and I'm talking the ICE version of the exact same vehicle, not comparing this company's hybrid to that company's econobox), AND don't know if anyone else noticed but the hybrid version of any car usually has 10-20HP more than the ICE only version so the hybrid can beat the gasser in a race. Changing the minds of a large number of people can be likened to changing the course of a gigantic, fully loaded ship running full out, it's going to take time and finesse.

[Qer]

Originally Posted by Telco

EVs are also not superior to ICE engines, at least at this time.

Personally I think they're superior on SOME areas, where range definitely isn't one of them. The areas where EV's excel are, for example, "fuel" cost and maintenance. Not to mention environment and noise, of course.

Originally Posted by Telco

The American public is simply not going to accept the electric vehicle until it can go 300 miles at 75MPH with the whole family on a single charge, then take a full recharge in 10-15 minutes while Mommy takes the kiddies to the can.

I think you're overly pessimistic.

Many people don't go very far in their daily commuting and could easily survive with a limited range. The few times they have to go further they could either go by cab or hire a car. Or keep a gasser as well since it's not uncommon, neither in US or EU, to have two cars.

I'm not saying that an EV will fit everyone, but on the other hand an ICE doesn't really fit everyone as well. An ICE doesn't fare well if it's only used for short distances when it doesn't have the time to heat up properly. It adds a lot of wear on the motor and the exhaust pipe tends to rust in a few years (at least where I live). If you mainly go short distances, an EV makes much more sense than an ICE.

The problem is that right now an ICE is the reference and as long as you keep discussing EV's from an ICE-perspective people will complain about range, range and range. My tactic is usually to start talking about running cost instead and that's when people start thinking about it from a different perspective and several has gone from "Can't replace my ICE" to "Could actually work for my commuting".

It takes a different mind set, but it's definitely not impossible to introduce an EV as long as you don't try to present it as a drop-in replacement but more as a complement.

Originally Posted by Telco

I really think the automakers are going at the EV in the correct way, by introducing them as hybrids. People still get the range and utility of an ICE, but they also start getting a taste of the economy of electricity.

Personally I think the main reason automakers try to go the hybrid way is spelled "after market". An EV is bad business because there's too few parts that needs maintenance and thus it doesn't fit in the current business strategy, in a hybrid there's even more parts than in an ICE that will bring cash flow and thus it's the prefered solution.

I don't expect any of the current manufacturers will change their minds as long as things are Status Quo and that's why I think that what will happen is that some other company actually might break through some day and that's when the existing manufacturers will have to adapt or die. It's really just a cost issue, when the technology is cheap enough, the production big enough or the gas price high enough the scale will tip over. Unless the politicians will do something about it of course, but I'm not holding my breath...

I might be a cynic, but that's what I think.

[1clue]

I'm going to tell a story about my sister, who I will be so bold as to call a Typical American Rural Consumer.

She got a hybrid pseudo-suv, not sure what. Toyota I think but I only saw it once from a distance.

In her area, she drives 30 miles each way to work, all at highway speed. Getting to a decent shopping area is about 70 miles, all of them highway.

She doesn't get any mileage improvement over the non-hybrid version. What she gets is better passing. The engine is the same as the non-hybrid, so the electric gives her a bit of extra zip when passing. That's it.

She likes it because of the idea of lower emissions and "green-ness", but aside of driving out of a parking spot, the ICE is running if the car is moving.

While she could technically use an all-electric in her daily commute, her area is depressed enough that most cars in the area were bought from used lots in the town 70 miles away. The top 10% or so income households can afford a new car, and that's basic stuff like Ford Escorts and similar. In my sister's case, they both have significantly better than average jobs and so their income is way above average, so they can drive better cars. I guess that breaks my "typical" characterization, right?


Now let's break off to Chicago, which is not too far from where I live now. I'd say about half of the households have a car, just speaking to the people I've met. I might have talked to a higher paid segment of society there, certainly not the affluent but comfortable. Mass transit is just too easy, cheap and pervasive. Not only that, but for a lot of neighborhoods it's a huge expense to even own a car. You can buy a condo in a high-rise, then find out that to lease a parking space in the garage it costs in excess of $10k a year. Not saying they're all like that, but owning a house and having a place to park your car are not the same assumption.

For the people who live in the 3-story row houses, they get street parking mostly. The city doesn't allow you to reserve a spot, so if you shovel the snow out of a parking spot somebody else can take it before you get your car in there.



IMO, the only thing holding electrics back from a technical standpoint is the batteries. If we had better batteries, and people could afford them, then a lot can be said for electric vehicles.

The main thing that keeps "average" people from buying them is the politics of the oil industry. They want you to think you have to drive 300+ miles on a tank, fill up in 10 minutes and get back in to do it again.

[Jason Lattimer]

I can't find the website now, but I found a company building quickchargers for electric cars. They charge in ten minutes and it looks suspiciously like a gas pump. It is even green colored like at the B.P. stations. If we could get these into gas stations and more cars into driveways we will really be doing good.

I am not a fan of legislation, but it might be a good idea to make apartments and such put power points at parking locations so people have the chance to buy an electric car.

[Technologic]

Originally Posted by 1clue

Truth be told, I will still need an ICE-powered truck or other big-engined beastie. I regularly pull a 20 foot trailer with a load on it, and I haul it sometimes over 1000 miles in a day, fairly frequently over 100 miles.

You certainly don't need it, you just need a roadway system that has on demand electricity, or a useable electromagnetic train system that can haul it for you

What I want an EV for is for the daily commute and all that local running around. For that, the smaller the better. That's why I'm focusing on an inverted trike using bicycle rules.

As for the pain of plugging it in, how about the pain of driving all the way to the gas station?

If he's a muscle car guy though, he's not going to want an EV. There's no replacement for the rolling thunder. I'm not really a motor-head, but there's something very appealing about a genuine American muscle car with a big block and 1000+ hp and drag tires.

There's something far sexier to me with a drag car, huge DC motor, large cap banks, and perfectly smooth torque curves.

Also with needing an inefficient car to haul stuff... you can still fix a lot of that MPG crap with a lower Cd instead of the 0.55 the normal pickup has (embarassing)