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Post by epaul on Jan 9, 2023 11:42:42 GMT -5
From an Atlantic article on the size and weight of many of the new EVs being rolled out: ...The forthcoming electric Chevrolet Silvarado EV, for example, will weigh about 8,000 pounds, 3,000 more than the current gas-powered version...The primary energy source (power plant) will be cleaner by a little or a lot (as regards CO2), but that EV pickup will require more energy to operate than the gas powered one as it is 60% heavier. Do note that in the above example, the EV Silverado also offers more power and performance than the gas-powered Silverado, but not 60%, maybe in the range of 5-10% (a off the cuff guess on my part). There would be increase in weight between an EV Civic and gas Civic, but I don't know how much but probably not nearly as much. The theme of the Atlantic article was not that batteries weigh a lot, it was that EV or no EV, the vehicles on America's roads keep getting bigger and heavier and the move to EV, when and if it occurs, shows no indication of changing that. My point is, that Silvarado EV is one heavy ass pickup. 1952  1962  1982  2002  2022  |
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Post by epaul on Jan 9, 2023 12:08:49 GMT -5
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Post by TKennedy on Jan 9, 2023 12:17:26 GMT -5
Speaking of pickups I saw the GMC Denali advertised during a football game. In the ad they were driving it with no hands.
Thought I’d check the price all tarted up like that. $89,000
The Silverado EV looks like it will check in at around $100,000++
How can anyone that really needs a pickup afford that? Yet I see tons of monster pickups all over the place.
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Post by epaul on Jan 9, 2023 12:42:27 GMT -5
If this thread creates a sense of deja vu, we did have a similar thread a year or two ago (and will probably have similar results). To recap from that earlier thread:
Aqua said: "Americans are pigs and drive pigmobiles. Only legislation can cure this piggy madness that is destroying lives and roads and parking space.
Russell said: No way in hell do I want some candy-assed self-appointed do-gooder telling me what I can drive or not drive. This is AMERICA! Those candy-assed self-appointed do-gooders would put us all in rubber-coated baby-bumpers with a top speed of 12 miles an hour if they have their way.
Todd said: What's an EV?
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Post by aquaduct on Jan 9, 2023 12:45:41 GMT -5
Yeah, there's a long history of environmentalists best efforts to push crap noone really wants moving people not into what the environmentalists want, but into bigger and bigger versions of what consumers actually want. The safety ninnies seem to have just started to discover the downsides of EVs- namely they're in general a significantly inferior technology compared to internal combustion.
The latest discovery is they weigh a ton or five more than comparable ICE vehicles. This comes after discovering that they're much more expensive and have pathetic towing and load hauling capabilities.
So I guess the ninnies will start whining about size again (it was all the rage back 20 years ago when actual consumers started to move to trucks as cars became more useless due to fuel economy requirements).
EPA's next round of draconian CO2 driven fuel economy standards were very careful to basically leave light trucks alone. But if they keep being pushed to make light trucks useless, there's always bigger and heavier medium duty trucks that so far regulators haven't figured out how to touch.
Always fun to watch for me.
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Post by brucemacneill on Jan 9, 2023 13:48:40 GMT -5
Watched a video by a guy who had bought an electric pickup and took it on a trip to show it off to his brother. Most of his time was spent looking for chargers he could use and some took him off his route far enough he lost range getting back to the highway. In any case the truck was inconvienient at best. He was from Massachusetts and his brother lives in Georgia. It took him 29 hours to get home from Georgia. ICE truck would have taken 17 hours. Some of the chargers he found were at hotels but he couldn't use them because you had to be staying at the hotel.
I watched another video about Tesla's in Winter. They were inconvienient.
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Post by billhammond on Jan 9, 2023 14:07:23 GMT -5
Business Insider
Xaviar and Alice Steavenson wanted to find out what it's like to drive a Tesla, so they rented one from Hertz for a trip from Orlando, Fla., to Wichita, Kan.
They say they knew the electric car would need charging en route — and expected it to take longer after the weather turned so cold in late December — but what the siblings didn't expect was just how often they'd need to plug it in.
Xaviar Steavenson told Insider it got to the point that the "battery would drain faster than it would charge."
When they set off, Steavenson said, they could drive for at least 2½ hours before needing to charge the Tesla. "We ended up having to stop every one to 1½ hours to charge for an hour, then an hour and a half, then two hours," he said.
"So beyond the lost time, it also got to the point it was between $25 and $30 to recharge," Steavenson said. "Just in one day, we stopped six times to charge at that cost."
Steavenson said Hertz said on its website that renting a Tesla was "always cheaper than gas" but added that he'd found the claim to be far from his experience.
He said when he and his sister first called Hertz, the agent told him he'd "had nothing but Tesla calls today" and had "no idea why they're having issues."
A Hertz representative told Insider: "We have not experienced a significant increase in communication from customers about the battery of their EV rentals. However, battery range varies by vehicle manufacturer and can be influenced by multiple factors including weather and driving conditions."
The Steavensons were not alone, though, in reporting Tesla charging problem in cold weather. A 44-year-old radio host from the city of Lynchburg in eastern Virginia told Insider it was 19 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 7 Celsius, when he was left stranded just before Christmas because his Model S wouldn't charge.
Steavenson said Hertz told him to go to the closest branch to get a new car. "However, they don't have Teslas there or not even the equivalent, so I'm headed back in a Nissan Rogue Sport," he said. "At least it's economical."
Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.
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Post by millring on Jan 9, 2023 20:59:28 GMT -5
Heavy makes me happy. --Mavis Staples
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Post by John B on Jan 9, 2023 21:18:35 GMT -5
Heavy makes me happy. --Mavis Staples Sunshine is heavy. |
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Post by jdd2 on Jan 10, 2023 0:36:41 GMT -5
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Post by david on Jan 10, 2023 23:02:53 GMT -5
Wife's current (new) car: 2023 Hybrid Hyundai Tucson Limited, 3800 pounds, 38 mpg; her prior car was a 2011 (non-hybrid) Lexis RX350, 4200 pounds, 22 mpg.
Weight saving with the newer, hybrid car is 400 pounds. Mpg savings is 16 mpg.
The Hyundai is 4 inches shorter on the exterior, but the cars have similar interior dimensions. The Hyundai has a crap load more of electronics and safety stuff. As far as I can tell, they ride comfort is the same, though I much prefer the handling and increased acceleration of the Hyundai.
Maybe a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, (Current new Lexus RX 350s are priced around $80.000 whereas the Hybrid Tucsons are about $40,000) but we wanted better mileage than we were getting, and, for me, we got a better car. I had not considered the weight, but our newer replacement is lighter and with much better mileage.
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Post by aquaduct on Jan 11, 2023 7:53:20 GMT -5
Wife's current (new) car: 2023 Hybrid Hyundai Tucson Limited, 3800 pounds, 38 mpg; her prior car was a 2011 (non-hybrid) Lexis RX350, 4200 pounds, 22 mpg. Weight saving with the newer, hybrid car is 400 pounds. Mpg savings is 16 mpg. The Hyundai is 4 inches shorter on the exterior, but the cars have similar interior dimensions. The Hyundai has a crap load more of electronics and safety stuff. As far as I can tell, they ride comfort is the same, though I much prefer the handling and increased acceleration of the Hyundai. Maybe a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, (Current new Lexus RX 350s are priced around $80.000 whereas the Hybrid Tucsons are about $40,000) but we wanted better mileage than we were getting, and, for me, we got a better car. I had not considered the weight, but our newer replacement is lighter and with much better mileage. Hybrids still have gas engines so they're not full on EVs. They're still powered primarily by the gas engine and the battery is typically relatively small. The Honda Civic hybrid I used to have to commute into DC (it qualified for the HOV lane pass) had the battery in the rear seat back under the package shelf. The good thing about a hybrid when compared to an EV is that it will continue to operate just fine when the battery wears out with only a modest reduction in mpg. |
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Post by epaul on Jan 11, 2023 11:21:09 GMT -5
The Green Lobby has turned its back on hybrids, but I don't know why (ok, I do know why... damn purists).
Hybrids are 90% as green as a full-bore EV (greener if you consider battery production and not just on-the-road operation) and they solve 100% of the issues EVs have. Easier to charge, will run without a charge, and you can drive them in a northern winter without wearing a snowmobile suit (which you need not just for the drive but for when the battery poops out after 50 miles instead of the 250 you were foolishly expecting leaving you stranded between Strandquist and Middle River on a windy twenty-below night with no beer.
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Post by aquaduct on Jan 11, 2023 12:21:14 GMT -5
The Green Lobby has turned its back on hybrids, but I don't know why (ok, I do know why... damn purists). Hybrids are 90% as green as a full-bore EV (greener if you consider battery production and not just on-the-road operation) and they solve 100% of the issues EVs have. Easier to charge, will run without a charge, and you can drive them in a northern winter without wearing a snowmobile suit (which you need not just for the drive but for when the battery poops out after 50 miles instead of the 250 you were foolishly expecting leaving you stranded between Strandquist and Middle River on a windy twenty-below night with no beer. Part of the reason is probably because hybrids don't by nature have a specific purpose of better fuel economy. You can use the battery to help fuel economy or you can use it to hot rod an existing engine. That was a problem back when I had mine. There were only 2 hybrids that focused on fuel economy, the Civic and the Prius. Everything else was tuned for performance. The VA licensing system that permitted access to HOV lanes (the primary driver of hybrid sales in the 2 markets that actually mattered- DC and LA) didn't actually care what kind of hybrid you drove, just that you drove a hybrid. So what little market there was was created by rich folks who wanted to drive a nice big SUV that went fast in the empty lane of the freeway for only a grand or 3 upcharge from the normal big ass SUV. That's where hybrids hit the wall. |
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