Consumer Reports recently published another EV apologia about how “fast” some devices can be charged. “200 miles of range in 20 minutes,” the apologia exclaims.
Some can “add 10 miles per minute or more at a DC fast charger”!
Doublesplusgood!
This is an example of the chocolate ration being increased – per Orwell – that people are expected to get excited about. Meanwhile, one gallon of gasoline can be pumped in seconds and that gallon will convert into 30 miles of range in a typical gas-powered crossover. Seven gallons – about half a tankful – can be pumped in two minutes or less and that is enough liquid energy to propel the same vehicle 210 miles. A full tank can be pumped in less than five minutes and now you have enough juice to travel about 400 miles, or twice as far as the device that takes 20 minutes to recover charge enough to travel half as far.
Great news about that increase in the chocolate ration, eh?
It would have been interesting to see whether devices would have sold on their own given the endless waiting that attends charging them. That is to say, if manufacturers of devices – Tesla, for instance – had had to rely on persuasion rather than coercion (and grift) to sell its devices.
Try to imagine that.
First, Tesla would have had to price its devices so as to reflect what it actually costs to manufacturer a device, plus a profit margin sufficient to justify manufacturing the device. Tesla did not have to do this because it was able to internally and externally subsidize its devices and thereby “sell” them at a price that was (and still is) much lower than what the price would otherwise have had to have been in order to not lose money on each “sale.” It was able to keep its operations profitable by selling carbon credits to its rivals, which those rivals were coerced into buying in order to comply with “zero emissions” requirements. And of course it was able to use the government (again) to “sell” its devices at a discount via tax-kickbacks to the buyers of its devices.
Take away the internal and external subsidies and Tesla would have had to price its devices probably $15k-20k plus higher, each such that its least-expensive offering, the Honda Civic-sized Model 3, would have had a base price around $60-$70k.
Try to imagine selling that.
Try to imagine having to persuade people to trade in a car that can be refilled to full in less than five minutes for a device that takes 20 minutes to recover the electric equivalent of less-than-half-a-tank. Which of course means it takes at least 40 minutes to recover the equivalent of a full tank. And it’s actually much longer than that because no device can accept a full charge “fast.” The “fast” charging shuts down once the device’s battery pack reaches about 80 percent charge, after which the charge becomes slow. This is done to reduce the risk of a fire – and to “preserve the health” of the device’s battery.
So – best case – a device that charges very “fast”- as per the CR apologia – will still be 20 percent shy of a full charge after 40 minutes of waiting to recover 80 percent charge.
This of course means you resume your driving with 20 percent less range than the “fully charged” range that device manufacturers always tout without explaining just how long the wait is to get that device fully charged. So if you don’t have the additional 20-30 minutes it will take on top of the 40 minutes you’ve already waited to get to 80 percent, then you’ll be waiting again, sooner. Because you are already down the EV-equivalent of about a quarter-tank if you leave the “fast” charger just 80 percent “full.”
That’s a hard sell.
It gets even harder when you have to tell prospective buyers that they cannot “fast” charge at home – negating the main sell that is used to get people interested in buying a device. They are led to believe they will never have to stop at a “dirty” gas station ever again – and that is certainly true. But they aren’t told they’ll have to park and wait at a Sheetz or some equivalent for much longer than it takes to pump a full tank of gas in order to recover a partial charge.
They are not told – it is certainly not advertised – that the wait at home is much longer because it is not generally possible to “fast” charge at home because few homes are wired up to deliver or even handle the extremely high voltages necessary to “fast” charge. Which means driving to the Sheetz – or equivalent – or waiting for hours, at home.
It doesn’t sell very well.
And that’s why it hasn’t – even though devices are subsidized – and despite the apologias of publications such as Consumer Reports that try to persuade people that the chocolate ration has been increased when it’s obviously been reduced.
And costs more, to boot.
Doubleplus good, eh?
. . .
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ZH has an updated Moore’s Law chart this morning:
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/vc-head-reveals-most-important-graph-ever-conceived
Every car is becoming a roving information data collector/center/spy and will be incorporated into a Ai run matrix planet
I am a Neo-Luditte for a good reason, I do not want to be absorbed into non-organic Borg false reality. Just wait until Elon’s neural link is required to attend school.
Dave, Dave, I can not allow you to do that …
Little do humans realize that space Ai (realm of the Gray aliens) is colonizing planet earth. I recommend reading Alien Interview by Lawrence Spencer and Everthing You Know is Wrong by Lloyd Pye. Earth was seeded with humans, earth is probably one of hundreds or even thousands of planets being terraformed by humanoids – the hairless big brained human is the perfect animal to change a planet to what the bastards in the heavens want.
I am sure of one thing, by the time we created robots in our image, the owners of the planet will have us eliminated. Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2045 robots will be indistinguisable from organic humans – so enjoy the rest of the century, that is all the time we have left.
Hi Jack,
Hope you’re wrong about that – because it’s perhaps the bleakest assessment of the future I can imagine. If it turns out to be so, I will be grateful that I was born in time to enjoy the first half of my life and so at least not lose everything that makes life worth living, which those born recently may have already lost.
Very, very sad.
“Every industry on our planet is going to become an information business.” – Stephen Jurvetson
It’s this kind of thinking that I encountered around 1981. At the time I questioned how we can all get rich selling each other insurance. I never got more than a quizzical stare in return. Without some sort to tangible result to the “information” it’s merely useless data. Perhaps its the curmudgeon in me but, I just don’t see a future that is nothing but one big video game.
How will food be grown and distributed if “every business is an information business”? If nothing else we’ll need soap to scrub away our stank.
This is nothing more than the musings of some incel eating Doritos in their Mom’s basement.
Some people can live with the limited range and charging issues even if you can’t charge it at home, but can you live with the increased fire risk? I looked at a YouTube video of Chinese e-bikes and the like bursting into flames whether they were charging or not appeared not to make much of a difference.
Makes you a little nervous about the EV that might be parked in your neighbors garage.
Don’t worry GovCo cares….
This grift is right up there with the MPGe scam, ‘miles per gallon equivalent’. Equivalent to what? There are so many variables in that equation that it can be twisted any which way; what is the cost of the electricity, how is it generated, etc. Gotta make the virtue signalers think they’re getting a good deal along with saving the planet.
As others here have pointed out, no matter what color you paint it a turd is still a turd.
At Mach 10, Russia’s Oreshnik missile travels just over 2 miles per second, or 120 miles per minute. Which is about the speed at which a fast fuel pump can add potential miles to your gas tank.
By contrast, the claimed 10 miles of range per minute at a DC ‘fast’ charger is subsonic — a pokey Mach 0.78 for EeeVee simps.
If you get electrodes implanted in your head, you can use an EeeVee to self-administer electroconvulsive therapy. Bzzzztttttttttttt!!!
Guess I’ll have to break the news
That I got no mind to lose
All the girls are in love with me
I’m a teenage lobotomy
— Ramones, Teenage Lobotomy
“Seven gallons – about half a tankful – can be pumped in two minutes or less”
Mostly less.
Your estimate is very conservative. Retail fuel pumps are capable of 10 gallons per minute.
When I end up at a filling station that is slow (like 6-7 GPM) I stop going there.
Slow flow rate is an indication of:
1) Their filters are dirty and restricting flow to the pump.
2) They have intentionally slowed flow to keep me at the pump longer and subjected to their infernal advertising screen on the pump. Some brands seem inclined toward this behavior. They must be making more money selling advertising than they make selling gasoline.
When I encounter scenario #2, I’ll literally pump about 1 gallon or less before leaving to go find a more honest station.
The pumps for the big rigs are more like 30-40 GPM which makes the idea of electric long haul semis all the more absurd.
Waiting 20 minutes (or more) for a EV charge is simply insanity.
I’m so tired of people pretending that “green energy” regression is progress.
FYI. most pumps that show insipid ads also have vertical rows of “buttons” on each side of the screen. Usually the second from the top on the right is the mute button.
You’re welcome.
The pumps near me either don’t have the mute or the evil bastards have disabled it. This makes me even more mad. LOL.
Honestly, I’m such a Luddite, I try to completely avoid the stations with screens in the pump.
My gas station choices are dwindling since I can only use real, high octane gasoline. I can’t be so picky. There are only 3 stations in my area that I can use. It used to be 4, but they stopped selling real gas.
One of the gas stations I use in Tulsa is one of those old-timey type stations that still have full service available.
Hi Sparkey,
One of the great things – to me – about my ’76 TA is that I can burn regular unleaded. Why? Because it has 8.2:1 compression (the original heads had even larger combustion chambers and 7-something CR, yes really). I used to have another ’76 and it had a set of early RA III heads and a CR of appx. 10.75:1 and had to have premium – plus octane boost.
My L48 small block Chevy transplanted from a 69 Camaro into my 79 Firebird has 10.25:1 CR. In order to not get detonation or to have to retard the timing, I have to use 91 octane and octane booster. I consider it part of my monthly entertainment budget. Life really is about the journey.
Hi Philo,
Yup! One of the thing’s I have always liked about Pontiacs is that the CR is determined by the heads. So it’s easy to change CR! I have thought about getting a set of (I forget the casting number) earlier heads that would give me appx. 9.5:1 and probably an additional 20 horsepower. Ah, but for time and money to do these things….
Next up for me is aftermarket aluminum heads. Modern head design has come a long way. You just can’t touch the flow numbers of a modern head design compared to the old iron, even with porting. I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know, but head and cam combo is the single biggest determiner of performance on these old engines. They want to breathe! A good set of heads and bigger cam can easily add 100 HP.
The Pilot truck stop up the road from me is converting valuable parking spaces into eeeveee charging stations. I go by it often enough to get a feel for how heavily used it becomes. Guessing not very busy at all.
BTW, we just passed through the solar maximum of our sun’s 11-year cycle. In theory less solar activity means less energy hitting our blue rock, hence lower global temperatures.
OT: How Tavares ruined Dodge, Jeep, Ram:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp3jQ77e910
The “ideal” for an EV is a car that’s driven less than 100 miles a day with occasional road trips. A commuter car. 100 miles will pull about 50% of the state of charge from the battery pack, which can then be level-2 charged at home overnight at a nice steady rate of 0.1-0.5C. This will maximize the lifespan of the battery pack. An occasional road trip, over 500 miles, with stops at a fast(er) charger probably won’t damage the battery pack but won’t do it any favors either.
Now, if you’re able to live within that nice steady predictable use case, buy an EV. The perfect ride for Casper Milquetoast. Someone who loves routine and is hypervigilant. Someone who doesn’t care about cars inasmuch as they’re just a form of transportation. They’d be just as satisfied with European or Japanese trains, maybe even more so.
But don’t try to sell them to the rest of us. Sure, there are some tech nerds who geek out over the electromotive forces at play, or the gimmicky options, but other than them there’s no real upside, only hassle and wasted time. Not only that, but then when buying used, whose car are you going to see on the lot? Old Doc Casper’s Model S is still taking him to his office in the psychology group practice in Brentwood, so it’s not for sale. More than likely you’ll be looking at the tech fanboi who couldn’t keep the battery charged and was always dealing with range anxiety.
Meanwhile, a used ICE, even if the oil was only ever changed after turning to tar, would still be serviceable, even with “costly” repairs, which are largely going to be one-and-done, and won’t involve dismantling most of the car (although I think today’s engine bays do require a lot of body disassembly before work).
Astute observation: “They’d be just as satisfied with European or Japanese trains, maybe even more so.”
Most of our lives are run by a clock. This is the greatest success of IBM, the company who made their fortune selling time clocks to industry. Everyone shows up at the same time throughout the economy. The clock says it’s time to work, so you work. The bell dings and it’s time for your federally mandated lunch break. Then the bell dings again and back on the line until we all head back to our homes, just in time for our favorite TV shows.
Coordination is important for work, to be sure. But when leisure time also runs on a tight schedule, what are we really doing here? Many people are such slaves to the time clock that when they retire and have all the time in the world, they do nothing. Makes me wonder what I’ll be like when I get released from the time clock.
The broadcast TV networks lived on their schedules. A show could be made or broken by when it aired. With the rise of VCRs and later DVRs, that extra promotion was finished. The networks sued Sony and TiVO for copyright infringement, but they lost because the courts had some common sense. That broke the entertainment clock.
I’d keep going, but I’m going to be late for work!
Hi Ready.
A mechanic I know replaced the engine in a Toyota pickup that had never had the oil changed from new. The engine made it to around 60,000 miles or so before it got noisy. The owner did maintain the proper oil level though. Idiot got a pricey bill though.
Being a Toyota, just topping off the oil will keep it clean. The truck owner is basically doing an oil change every 3000- 5000 miles anyway by replacing the burnt oil.
His issue is the old oil filter.
A life dictated by the tyranny of a clock, is not a life worth living.
I’m willing to concede the argument that an EV might work for a daily commuter. That use case almost pencils out economically.
Using your home power at $0.20/kW-hr using perhaps a Leaf at 73 miles on a 24 kW-hr battery means you’re getting about $0.06 per mile. A gasoline Versa gets 40 MPG so the same 73 mile range is 1.825 gallons at $3/gallon will cost $5.48 or $0.075 per mile.
You also may save a little time, since the car is charging at night and don’t have to spend a few minutes at 7-11. It’s marginal if you figure you probably fill the tank once a week but it’s still not zero time. But neither is the EV in theory a big time suck since the charging is time when parked at home anyway.
Where it does start to fall apart is wear and tear. An ICE engine lasts longer than a battery pack but EVs don’t need periodic oil changes. A $40 oil change every 5,000 miles is $1,600 in 200,000 miles. A battery pack is going to be useless at 200,000 (actually long before) and that’s going to be thousands of Dollars. Tires were out faster on an EV due to the weight, too. So the life span calculation heavily favors ICE.
Also environment changes the range estimates. Heat is free with an ICE, A/C is not a major dink to MPG. Not so with EV, those things are major impacts to fuel consumption.
But going in eyes wide open there may be a reason to go electric for urban commuters, especially if you are open and honest and say you’re not zero pollution but are displacing it. It’s not unreasonable to want no tailpipe exhaust in a city to reduce the concentration of it. Moving it to a power plant where your equivalent exhaust can be scrubbed and diluted at a power plant is arguably a positive effect. No one wants air pollution and a car engine in traffic is relatively inefficient compared to a power plant boiler that can run at peak efficiency constantly. So you do lower your overall emissions that way.
@Eric – What’s the deal with the logo on the hat? I’ve been wondering that since the first time you linked that guy’s picture/videos.
I assume it is some kind of LDS thing. Maybe the braintrust can provide an answer.
The people who are “buying in” to this nonsense are the same as those that think a dirty shop rag over your nose will keep you healthy. They fall for two logical fallacies. The first is the Straw Man argument that proposes an End Of The World scenario that doesn’t actually exist. Secondly they go for the Appeal To Authority fallacy when The Experts make claims that are dubious at best.
Once invested they just can’t let go of this cognitive dissonance that overwhelms their mind. They then become like the poster from X-Files, I Want To Believe. But, instead of a flying saucer they replace it with a white and red fake cootie or a Model 3.
https://www.amazon.com/X-Files-Poster-Believe-Official-24×36/dp/B003V1IU3O
The difference being one is a thought experiment that we can’t be the only sentient beings in the Universe as opposed to being duped by the Elmer Gantrys of the 21st Century.
Some argue it’s the God-shaped hole being filled with beliefs of something, anything.