The Coming Disruption of Transport

[kEiThZ]

I don't know what hybrid car bit KeithZ, but mine didn't cost a lot, gets 3.7 lp100k real-world on some trips, has never had a mechanical fault, and will go nearly 1000k on a tank.

I don’t understand this because I drive a hybrid Toyota.

I get 1000km a tank and I gas up once a month and it costs me only 61$cad for a full tank

I wasn't talking about fuel efficiency. On roadtrips, we easily get 700 km from our 45L tank. At times, with some careful driving, good weather and geography, I've gotten 900km. What I was talking about was maintenance. I still need to do that oil change every 15 000 km. I've still had to do routine ICEV maintenance, like replacing spark plugs, timing belts, engine air filter, etc. I'm not including unscheduled repairs that EVs don't have like the vacuum pump. It's an 11 yr old car and at the time was a great and fuel efficient option. But I don't want to have ICEV maintenance in my next vehicle. It'd be nice to be reduced to mostly consumables like brake pads, wipers, tires and washer fluid. Maybe the odd battery coolant flush every few years.

Also, of late, the trend is to put in smaller engines with turbos, whether hybrid or straight ICEV. This saves fuel. But you now need higher octane. So whatever you would have saved from gas, will inevitably be eaten up, by having to use premium fuel.

Chinese government subsidizes Chinese automakers. Without government money all the Chinese EV manufacturers would have gone bankrupt long ago. The Chinese government also keeps Japanese cars out of the Chinese market due to past grievances surrounding WW2.

This is a rather jingoistic and nationalistic talking point. And I say this as somebody who doesn't want to see China win economically and strategically. The subsidy claim is tired and lazy. Sure, their EV industry got going that way (and it's a tactic almost every Western country is trying to imitate right now), but they now have a mature industry that is globally competitive. And that's why legacy automakers are losing in China and just about everywhere else that electrification is taking off. Heck, Chinese EVs are taking share in Japan itself. How would that be possible, if it's all supposedly be driven by subsidies in China?

Chinese EV's are not associated with quality. Their battery technology is questionable.

China has three quarters of the world's battery industry. That would not be possible if their battery manufacturing was "questionable". And it's not just EVs. I would bet money that most of your kids toys and most of the electronics in your home have Chinese batteries, and you have never once worried about them. Like everything else, there's a quality spectrum for items that come out of China. And you get what you pay for.

Understand that Chinese society is full of corruption.

This is eye roll inducing. Look up any of the past scandals in the West and tell me we're innocent. Heck, we're less than two decades out from mass corruption in the American housing market nearly destroying the Global economy. We've also had plenty of automotive sector corruption from Dieselgate to Takata air bags to the Toyota accelerator scandal. Convenient how we quickly memoryhole all the times industry in the West screwed up and then tried to hide it or bribe and manipulate governments out of penalties.

 

[kEiThZ]

I live in an apartment so I can’t charge at home, so evs are out of the equation for me. Previous gen Priuses are common enough that maintenance isn’t any more or less expensive than a normal ICE car and I have a 12yr warranty on the hybrid system.

If I owned a home, I would think that a plugin hybrid would be the best choice for me too. Enough electric power so all my short daily trips are on battery and then I can take longer roadtrips on hybrid.

More densely populated countries have gotten around this relatively easily. Last year, in the UK, I saw substantial efforts at putting up fast chargers at grocery stores. Everybody has to buy groceries. And in the half hour it takes to buy groceries, you can get enough juice for the week. And it's still cheaper than gas, though not as cheap as home charging.

Like I said about range anxiety, these are all fundamentally a problem of the petrobrain. It's very hard to imagine how you would use an EV, because you don't have one. If you had one in your parking spot tomorrow, you'd quickly figure out how to charge. I live in a condo with no charging. We've got Teslas in our building. And I've talked to the owners. They either charge at work or with public chargers. And they don't see it as a substantial obstacle. One guy uses the Electrify Canada charger near us. And he said that's a nice 20 min coffee break for him at the Starbucks that is near the charger.

 

[kEiThZ]

The post-covid hangover in auto production backlog is still with us. Maybe as supply improves, prices will fall.

It's actually deliberate now. A lot of OEMs realized that restricting supply actually gave them a higher equilibrium point. And they realized consumers are willing to pay more. This is why the average new vehicle price in Canada is over $65k. For all the complaints, people are happy to pay up.

The only way I see this correcting itself is a recession and/or some disruption, like Chinese EVs stealing ICEV marketshare forcing significant ICEV discounting.

 

[MrGoose]

I wasn't talking about fuel efficiency. On roadtrips, we easily get 700 km from our 45L tank. At times, with some careful driving, good weather and geography, I've gotten 900km. What I was talking about was maintenance. I still need to do that oil change every 15 000 km. I've still had to do routine ICEV maintenance, like replacing spark plugs, timing belts, engine air filter, etc. I'm not including unscheduled repairs that EVs don't have like the vacuum pump. It's an 11 yr old car and at the time was a great and fuel efficient option. But I don't want to have ICEV maintenance in my next vehicle. It'd be nice to be reduced to mostly consumables like brake pads, wipers, tires and washer fluid. Maybe the odd battery coolant flush every few years.

You're replacing ICEV maintenance with EV maintenance.

Even though the components are simplified with respect to moving parts, you now have high-voltage involved. EV maintanance regime would be less repairs that cost more and are way more dangerous because of the electrical syste,

Also, of late, the trend is to put in smaller engines with turbos, whether hybrid or straight ICEV. This saves fuel. But you now need higher octane. So whatever you would have saved from gas, will inevitably be eaten up, by having to use premium fuel.

This is not true. My Toyota Corolla Hybrid takes normal gasoline. In fact every toyota hybrid takes normal gas.

More densely populated countries have gotten around this relatively easily. Last year, in the UK, I saw substantial efforts at putting up fast chargers at grocery stores. Everybody has to buy groceries. And in the half hour it takes to buy groceries, you can get enough juice for the week. And it's still cheaper than gas, though not as cheap as home charging.

Like I said about range anxiety, these are all fundamentally a problem of the petrobrain. It's very hard to imagine how you would use an EV, because you don't have one. If you had one in your parking spot tomorrow, you'd quickly figure out how to charge. I live in a condo with no charging. We've got Teslas in our building. And I've talked to the owners. They either charge at work or with public chargers. And they don't see it as a substantial obstacle. One guy uses the Electrify Canada charger near us. And he said that's a nice 20 min coffee break for him at the Starbucks that is near the charger.

I think focusing on EV's as a solution is a symptom of carbrain.

If we took road space away from personal enclosed vehicles and gave it over to public transit and bike-infrastructure, we wouldn't even need to worry about all the myriad infrastructure problems that come with EVs. Road damage, electric charging infra, grid upgrades, etc.

 

[crs1026]

I think focusing on EV's as a solution is a symptom of carbrain.

If we took road space away from personal enclosed vehicles and gave it over to public transit and bike-infrastructure, we wouldn't even need to worry about all the myriad infrastructure problems that come with EVs. Road damage, electric charging infra, grid upgrades, etc.

There is a difference between thinking of EV's as a silver bullet for transportation versus anticipating the significant change they will create.

Demand for automobiles of any variety is a different matter than demand for EV's as a modal share of the automobile market.

EV's may become cheaper and more attractive than ICE, particularly since governments will find some ways of incenting them and auto makers will find ways of making them inherently more cost efficient than ICE's. But they will not become fundamentally inexpensive. It will be a $60K EV versus a $70K ICE. It will be a power grid delivering electricity at some price (amortizing the cost of a huge expansion in generation and distribution) versus a petro industry delivering gasoline at some price (reflecting disincentives to carbon, of some manner that survives the current politics, and amortizing investments in the drilling and refining and distribution industry). It will be the cost of building and maintaining radiators and fuel pumps and mufflers and fuel injectors versus the cost of building and maintaining electric motors and switchgear and batteries.

EV's are coming, and that is a transformation.

Moving away from automobiles (of any propulsion method) is a different transformation. EV's and highways will never become fundamentally so cheap compared to the cost of building and operating mass transit that a second autocentric society is likely..

The two have linkages, but few people are suggesting that we flood the world with EV's as a comprehensive transportation solution. The carbrain thing is about finding ways to get people to surrender the mobility that the automobile provides. That's a tougher problem than EV vs ICE.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

You're replacing ICEV maintenance with EV maintenance.

Sure. But the question is at what rate. ICEV scheduled maintenance does cost more and is more frequent. That's a fact.

Here's a link to the recommended maintenance for Tesla (as an example). How close is this to any hybrid?

https://www.tesla.com/en_ca/support/vehicle-maintenance

Even though the components are simplified with respect to moving parts, you now have high-voltage involved. EV maintanance regime would be less repairs that cost more and are way more dangerous because of the electrical system,

This is some hilarious FUD. Electricity isn't magic. It's a lot easier to manage high voltage systems that combustion components. And if you have a hybrid, you have all the same EV component maintenance. So, if it's a comparison between hybrids and BEVs, this is a moot point.

This is not true. My Toyota Corolla Hybrid takes normal gasoline. In fact every toyota hybrid takes normal gas.

I said "of late". Emissions regulations are making it harder and harder to stick with normally aspirated engines and maintain marketable power. Especially in Europe. That's why you'll see more turbos on European brands. This is not just a hybrid problem. All their smaller cars are moving in that direction.

I think focusing on EV's as a solution is a symptom of carbrain.

If we took road space away from personal enclosed vehicles and gave it over to public transit and bike-infrastructure, we wouldn't even need to worry about all the myriad infrastructure problems that come with EVs. Road damage, electric charging infra, grid upgrades, etc.

I am with you. And nowhere did I say EVs are a solution. You'll notice that this discussion was about the relative advantages or disadvantages of hybrids and ICEVs vs. BEVs. Ideally we'd reduce the need to own vehicles. But we're very, very, very far from that in most of North America. So if you must have a vehicle, the question is which one is better.

 

[goreckm]

You know who talks about range anxiety? People who don't own EVs. You will never hear an EV owner mention it. They simply get better at managing their range and planning their trips. And every year the number of chargers and planning tools get better. Additionally, over the next few years, all the OEMs moving over to the NACS standard will make a huge difference in improving charging access.

Personally, I think of range anxiety as a concern on par with those who buy a pickup truck just to move a few 2x4s once a year. 95% of the year, you know your driving pattern. If there's a trip where you're not sure, just rent for that one trip. No different than renting a U-Haul to move something big.

I almost agree. I've had an EV for 2 years now, and almost at 40k km. In general, the only time I felt a bit of range anxiety is when we were doing a family road trip up north of sudbury and down through manitoulin island ,then across on the ferry to Tobermory. Apart from that, standard road trips are fine, especially when you have young kids which need to stop every few hours anyways. Drove it to NYC without a problems and worries.

For day to day driving, it's generally not a problem, except, it does take a bit more headspace than just having a car. For example, you always want to remember to plug it in every night. We currently don't have a L2 charger at home (waiting to install it after an upcoming reno we have planned), so, for us this is extra important. And as you said, it does require some extra planning ahead of time that you don't need to do with an ICE, which I don't mind, since I enjoy that aspect a lot, but some people really don't want to think about it. These issues will be solved by ensuring we keep the current L3 vehicle to charger capacity as we have now (only need more when we get more cars), but drastically increasing L2 chargers to be absolutely everywhere.

Having said all of this, I would absolutely never go back to an ICE. The experience of driving an EV is just hands down better in every way.

 

[afransen]

And I think people who know that their driving pattern will be incompatible with a typical EV will be staying out of the market until either the range or charging infrastructure improves. Their biggest initial inroads will be in urban and near-urban areas which is 80% of our population. Planning out a driving trip for enabling infrastructure is something we haven't had to do in decades. Even renting a vehicle is easier in urban areas and still part of the planning process. Say what you want about them but ICE vehicles introduced us to an incredible degree of flexibility.

You only need rapid charging if you can't charge at home or work, and on long road trips. Long road trips tend to be along highways, and highways are already fairly well-served by rapid chargers. The density will increase to match demand but it's already possible to make most trips. Maybe rural Montana is an issue, or Northern Alberta. That's a very small portion of the market.

 

[kEiThZ]

I almost agree. I've had an EV for 2 years now, and almost at 40k km. In general, the only time I felt a bit of range anxiety is when we were doing a family road trip up north of sudbury and down through manitoulin island ,then across on the ferry to Tobermory. Apart from that, standard road trips are fine, especially when you have young kids which need to stop every few hours anyways. Drove it to NYC without a problems and worries.

Having said all of this, I would absolutely never go back to an ICE. The experience of driving an EV is just hands down better in every way.

Basically the same thing I've heard from just about every EV owner I know. Most of them have told me that range anxiety was far less of a concern after they started actually driving an EV. And not much of an issue inside well travelled (and covered) corridors.

There are so many people who live in houses with garages who have two vehicles and so many people who aren't taking remote roadtrips. We should absolutely be encouraging these people to switch. They are the low hanging fruit.

These issues will be solved by ensuring we keep the current L3 vehicle to charger capacity as we have now (only need more when we get more cars), but drastically increasing L2 chargers to be absolutely everywhere.

There seems to be debate on the value of L2 chargers. Given the way cars are used, it's pretty rare to park in a spot in-between 1-3 hrs. If you're at the grocery store, you're there for half an hour. So L3 makes more sense. If you're at work or at the office, you're parked for at least 8 hrs, so L1 is probably more sensible. L2 basically only makes sense at places like a gym, or movie theatre or mall. There's even arguments that L2 for curbside charging in cities makes no sense because you end up with one car occupying the spot for a long time. There's a Google Ventures backed startup in NYC that is testing out the idea of using one 200 kw to wire up several spots. The idea being to dynamically allocate that power to charge as many cars as fast as possible and not have these cars spend hours in a valuable NYC street parking spot. In general I think it's still early days with charging and as we learn more about charging behaviours the deployment models will change.

 

[afransen]

One thing that I find odd about hybrids is the need to plug them in. I would have expected hybrids to work more like modern submarines or diesel-electric trains, where the engine never actually engages the drivetrain, but is instead solely there to create electric current to either drive the vehicle or charge the batteries for when the vehicle is moving without the engine running.

Mild hybrids don't have enough power from the EV powertrain for acceptable performance, so the ICE powertrain kicks in to supplement at higher speeds and accelerations. The EV powertrain is more for idling and regenerative braking.

Plug in hybrids can operate almost entirely off the EV powertrain, but tend to have somewhat anemic performance still, compared to pure BEVs, as the electric motor has lower output for weight and because the smaller battery pack can only produce so much power (C rating). If you accelerate aggressively (like for passing) the ICE will kick in.

EV's may become cheaper and more attractive than ICE, particularly since governments will find some ways of incenting them and auto makers will find ways of making them inherently more cost efficient than ICE's. But they will not become fundamentally inexpensive. It will be a $60K EV versus a $70K ICE. It will be a power grid delivering electricity at some price (amortizing the cost of a huge expansion in generation and distribution) versus a petro industry delivering gasoline at some price (reflecting disincentives to carbon, of some manner that survives the current politics, and amortizing investments in the drilling and refining and distribution industry). It will be the cost of building and maintaining radiators and fuel pumps and mufflers and fuel injectors versus the cost of building and maintaining electric motors and switchgear and batteries.

EVs I would say will actually be helpful for the grid. They can largely absorb off-peak baseload power. And as smart devices, they can be used by grid operators to charge (or even discharge back) as needed by the grid.

EVs have higher purchase cost, but if they can reach high utilization (km per day) they have very much lower cost per km. Hence why they are appealing for rideshare/autonomous rideshare aka robotaxi. If you have any belief that vehicle autonomy can be achieved at least in most places/times, then rides in robotaxis will get darned cheap, perhaps even cheaper than a personally owned vehicle. The only question is if they will face road taxation to manage congestion.

 

[afransen]

Basically the same thing I've heard from just about every EV owner I know. Most of them have told me that range anxiety was far less of a concern after they started actually driving an EV. And not much of an issue inside well travelled (and covered) corridors.

There are so many people who live in houses with garages who have two vehicles and so many people who aren't taking remote roadtrips. We should absolutely be encouraging these people to switch. They are the low hanging fruit.



There seems to be debate on the value of L2 chargers. Given the way cars are used, it's pretty rare to park in a spot in-between 1-3 hrs. If you're at the grocery store, you're there for half an hour. So L3 makes more sense. If you're at work or at the office, you're parked for at least 8 hrs, so L1 is probably more sensible. L2 basically only makes sense at places like a gym, or movie theatre or mall. There's even arguments that L2 for curbside charging in cities makes no sense because you end up with one car occupying the spot for a long time. There's a Google Ventures backed startup in NYC that is testing out the idea of using one 200 kw to wire up several spots. The idea being to dynamically allocate that power to charge as many cars as fast as possible and not have these cars spend hours in a valuable NYC street parking spot. In general I think it's still early days with charging and as we learn more about charging behaviours the deployment models will change.

From what I hear, L2 charger architecture will get to be quite cheap, and the hardware to split a 200 amp circuit over quite a few stalls will be reasonable inexpensive (for say, multi-unit residential). Apparently there is some clever electrical engineering built into the new NACS standard for splitting 3 phase power without transformers.

 

[kEiThZ]

From what I hear, L2 charger architecture will get to be quite cheap, and the hardware to split a 200 amp circuit over quite a few stalls will be reasonable inexpensive (for say, multi-unit residential). Apparently there is some clever electrical engineering built into the new NACS standard for splitting 3 phase power without transformers.

Haven't heard of this NACS strategy. Great, if true. But mostly my point is that charging investment is largely going to be driven by the desired and normal parking pattern of a place and what kind of charging somebody wants there. If somebody parked for 8-10 hrs in a spot and you want to give them 10 kWh (enough for the average commute in one direction), they only need ~1 kW. If they are parked somewhere for 30 mins and you want to give them 100 kWh for a week's worth of commuting, you'll need 200 kW. Figuring out the level of service to give is going to be based on an understanding of how a given space is used.

 

[lenaitch]

You only need rapid charging if you can't charge at home or work, and on long road trips. Long road trips tend to be along highways, and highways are already fairly well-served by rapid chargers. The density will increase to match demand but it's already possible to make most trips. Maybe rural Montana is an issue, or Northern Alberta. That's a very small portion of the market.

Hence why I said 'until range and/or infrastructure improves'. I have occasionally done a round-trip to Toronto Pearson - 700 km in one day and I certainly wouldn't want to be waiting in line for a charger. What works for some now doesn't work for everyone, but may well change in the future. If I were in the market for dropping serious coin on a new vehicle I'm not sure I'd be basing it on future conditions.

From what I hear, L2 charger architecture will get to be quite cheap, and the hardware to split a 200 amp circuit over quite a few stalls will be reasonable inexpensive (for say, multi-unit residential). Apparently there is some clever electrical engineering built into the new NACS standard for splitting 3 phase power without transformers.

Servicing a Level 2 EVSE (the "charger" itself is part of the vehicle) isn't all that complex or expensive; it's a level of power that is available in every household.. So long as equipment can do load balancing, you could connect 10 EVSEs to you house; although each would receive net less charging.

Level 3 is trickier. Current regulatory policy aside, depending on the residential location, the required power may not even be on the pole.. It is common for larger multi-residential structures. You don't need a transformer to access a particular leg of 3-phase power; it's done on the pole all the time when the utility peels of a leg to step down to consumer voltages. If they have figured out a way to step down AC power without a transformer it would be an interesting read.

 

[afransen]

 

[rbt]

Rivian is burning cash at a prodigious rate.

Is that initial capital for setting up a new EV line or are they actually taking a loss on each unit manufactured? If the former, finances get magically better after a couple years.