Electric Car Novelty

[user 7784]

In my opinion, based on knowledge attained since buying my PHEV, choosing electric in cars is simply a driving pleasure experience, rather than an environmental or economical benefit.

Batteries use a lot of resources and energy to build, and have about 10 years life, and then need to be recycled. This is expensive for the car owner, who pays more for a new electric car and then has an expensive bill to replace batteries after 10 years or has a write off, because repairs are more costly than the value of the vehicle.

Anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, so choosing electric to save the earth doesn’t factor.

When batteries catch fire , due to faulty recharging or head on collision with another electric vehicle etc, they become bombs which are intense and can’t be put out by fire brigades.

Saying all that, I still love driving a PHEV, because they are quiet and don’t pollute especially in underground car parks, which is a true environmental factor rather than the CO2 element of exhaust, which is the gas of life.

 

[ed2353]

Sounds like you've been listening to Donald Chump!

 

[greendwarf]

Batteries use a lot of resources and energy to build, and have about 10 years life, and then need to be recycled. This is expensive for the car owner, who pays more for a new electric car and then has an expensive bill to replace batteries after 10 years or has a write off, because repairs are more costly than the value of the vehicle.

Oh dear, mine is 10 years old. I must remember when I next drive it that the 20 miles of EV driving I am still getting, is merely a figment of my 75 year old dementia riddled brain. Presumably I am really still sitting in the care home armchair being looked after by nurse Rita Chevrolet!

 

[michael8554]

Nobody is going to pay to replace their battery after 10 years, they will sell the car before then.
There are loads of 10+ year old Renault Zoe, Nissan LEAF, and Mitsubishi I-MIEV/Peugeot Ion/Citroen C-Zero around.
Most still have 60% or more of their battery capacity left.
Which makes them cheap city cars with years of life left.
EV's catch fire and are difficult to put out.
But that's 10 times less likely per car per mile than a ICE car fire.
The ICE fires just don't make banner headlines.

 

[RobertGrover]

"Anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, so choosing electric to save the earth doesn’t factor." You are a fool!!!

We should keep rhe politics out of this forum. IMHO.

 

[RossWilliams]

I think the central argument that you shouldn't buy a new EV because it will reduce carbon emissions is correct.

Its important to understand that buying any new car of any kind adds additional emissions. Over the expected life of the car, the extra emissions from a new EV will be less than the new emissions from an ICE vehicle. But buying an existing car of any kind will produce fewer emissions than buying a new EV.

That's because an additional car in the fleet means additional miles traveled. When you buy a new car someone else uses the miles remaining on the used car you could have bought or the one you traded in.

At the bottom of that food chain are people who wouldn't have had a car at all. People who don't have access to a car walk, bike or use transit. Or, more often, they don't make the trip at all. So your EV isn't reducing emissions, its just increasing the miles traveled with the same amount of emissions. That may be a good thing, but it isn't helping prevent climate change.

 

[Woon Chung]

I think the central argument that you shouldn't buy a new EV because it will reduce carbon emissions is correct.

Its important to understand that buying any new car of any kind adds additional emissions. Over the expected life of the car, the extra emissions from a new EV will be less than the new emissions from an ICE vehicle. But buying an existing car of any kind will produce fewer emissions than buying a new EV.

That's because an additional car in the fleet means additional miles traveled. When you buy a new car someone else uses the miles remaining on the used car you could have bought or the one you traded in.

At the bottom of that food chain are people who wouldn't have had a car at all. People who don't have access to a car walk, bike or use transit. Or, more often, they don't make the trip at all. So your EV isn't reducing emissions, its just increasing the miles traveled with the same amount of emissions. That may be a good thing, but it isn't helping prevent climate change.

It is very fresh and intelligent way of thinking approaching to EV and Environment. I like it

 

[Tigercub]

Ok, "whatever".
Apart from any and all opinions political or otherwise, technology is progressing and during that progression there will be people who don't like the change for whatever reason. But change is coming and in ten yrs you won't recognize the energy and transportation industry. A PHEV is progress towards a better way. Waiting for a magical fantasy in which every issue in transportation and energy is 100% is just insane.

 

[RossWilliams]

"A PHEV is progress towards a better way."

Actually a PHEV IS a better way right now. All electric cars require huge battery capacity whose manufacture requires very large emission footprints. But most of our daily use can be met with the much smaller battery in a PHEV. In ten years you might make up for that in saved gas with a EV. But the immediate effect is MORE emissions, not fewer.

Its not clear how long it will take to establish the charging infrastructure to make EV's fully reliable for long distance travel that will allow their universal adoption. There is no "range anxiety" with a PHEV. Given that electricity is cheaper than petrol there would be a natural transition to PHEV's with larger batteries and as the charging infrastructure improved. That vision of a future "better way" is actually interfering with immediate change that will reduce emissions now and likely delaying a better future.

Most of the grid's unused capacity is fossil fuel based, increasingly natural gas. I called our PHEV a coal burner because when we bought it charging at night meant the local coal plant burned more coal. Our local utility got 10% of its power from solar and had battery storage for about half of that capacity. But they used that power during periods of peak demand, not when I was usually charging the PHEV. We moved and now get most of our power from hydro no matter what time of day. So the actual benefit of electrification actually varies a lot.

As PHEV owners, we ought to stop being defensive about not having a fully electric car. Its the folks who are buying huge batteries that they almost never use that need to justify owning their fully electric car.

 

[mellobob]

Ok, "whatever".
Apart from any and all opinions political or otherwise, technology is progressing and during that progression there will be people who don't like the change for whatever reason. But change is coming and in ten yrs you won't recognize the energy and transportation industry. A PHEV is progress towards a better way. Waiting for a magical fantasy in which every issue in transportation and energy is 100% is just insane.

Driving EV is so much nicer than ICE. I don't know where the vroom-vroom folks are coming from. I drive a PHEV, but I'm pretty sure my next car will be 100% EV. Another 2 to 4 years down the road?

 

[AXC Host]

I think its sad that some one would come on a phev forum just to get a reaction out of ppl. From the username we can see he's just a misanthrope with time on his hands or a cheap bot doing research for anti climate change groups.

 

[Rockwallrick]

We went from HEV to BEV and now PHEV. We ended up selling our MachE with only 12k miles on it due to some long road trips we had planned in 2023. I still don’t trust our infrastructure for doing road trips in EV’s!! While we had the MachE I got addicted to the instant torque that you get with the EV’s. While not as powerful the Outlander PHEV gives me back some of that instant torque that I got addicted to!!

 

[Woon Chung]

"A PHEV is progress towards a better way."

Actually a PHEV IS a better way right now. All electric cars require huge battery capacity whose manufacture requires very large emission footprints. But most of our daily use can be met with the much smaller battery in a PHEV. In ten years you might make up for that in saved gas with a EV. But the immediate effect is MORE emissions, not fewer.

Its not clear how long it will take to establish the charging infrastructure to make EV's fully reliable for long distance travel that will allow their universal adoption. There is no "range anxiety" with a PHEV. Given that electricity is cheaper than petrol there would be a natural transition to PHEV's with larger batteries and as the charging infrastructure improved. That vision of a future "better way" is actually interfering with immediate change that will reduce emissions now and likely delaying a better future.

Most of the grid's unused capacity is fossil fuel based, increasingly natural gas. I called our PHEV a coal burner because when we bought it charging at night meant the local coal plant burned more coal. Our local utility got 10% of its power from solar and had battery storage for about half of that capacity. But they used that power during periods of peak demand, not when I was usually charging the PHEV. We moved and now get most of our power from hydro no matter what time of day. So the actual benefit of electrification actually varies a lot.

As PHEV owners, we ought to stop being defensive about not having a fully electric car. Its the folks who are buying huge batteries that they almost never use that need to justify owning their fully electric car.

I like your wide range of eyes on the EV in general. I totally understand the point we have to concern about. But there are so many different eyes to see the current car and battery industry. So I would like to add a little bit of my opinion.

I think the market of car and battery industry is not based on the true theory. Car manufacturer have to sell more cars by hiding reality and create usable theory to a certain buyer who visited now. His theory will be differ from customer to customer. Battery manufacturer have to sell to car manufacturer since they invest huge money on construction. Material supplier have to sell their product because they cannot pile the material in the warehouse. In the mean time, somebody who has enough money to establish a new form of business in this car and battery business, try to hit his idea to get more money by investing his money to new market. Also petrol company push the car manufacturer to produce more ICE.

Come to think of these phenomena, customer have no space of choice by reality. Green Peace try to setup a new theory on Earth Environment and it becomes an important influence to the industry but it still an egg to the rock in car and battery industry.

Most of the governments and Car and Battery manufacturers say a good(sweet) technical improvement will provide welfare of our lives. They say "We are in progress".

Saying again, we have little choice based on the real result of reason on cars. People has different background of standard way of living. Some one who is 80 years old needs new car, some one who is 20 years old needs a new car, too. Everybody needs a car for different purpose, different knowledge, different character, different hobby, ETC.

I personally have an idea that we have to move to EV as soon as possible disregarding the weak point of current circumstance, because we have to get out of Internal Combustion system for transportation purpose only. There are lots of industry where combustion will be the only solution. But not for the transportation. The transportation is huge application. Actually EV is not friendly industry to environment as much as we think. However, it is clear that better than ICE a little bit.

Disregarding the difficult in real circumstance to 100% EV world, the truth is that we have to use EV for the future. What I mean is consumer should invest a little bit of effort on a little bit of inconvenience. If we setup this theory, we don't have to listen to car salesman's choice but our own choice of the car which is best for my need.

Your point of view to PHEV is understandable. I agree with that. But I would like to say(limited in Saying, though) that is not a goal but in transition stage. It is better to shorten the transition period if our goal is EV.

EV will encourage a lot of other industry of Battery. Currently, Lithium Ion leads the battery industry, but cannot guarantee it will last forever. Soon new material take over Lithium and new power source will be invented. What ever it is, they will be use for Electric Motor to move the car. Because the utilizing a "ELECTRON" is huge merit of human being. We are living in an ELECTRON WORLD. Why not car while every train transits to electric. I strongly believe that Petrol Industry on car refused to be a Electron car world for long time. Because the ICE car is their lifeline. End user has the right to go EV world early.

Thank you for reading pointless story until the end.

 

[Ecological]

In my opinion, based on knowledge attained since buying my PHEV, choosing electric in cars is simply a driving pleasure experience, rather than an environmental or economical benefit.

Batteries use a lot of resources and energy to build, and have about 10 years life, and then need to be recycled. This is expensive for the car owner, who pays more for a new electric car and then has an expensive bill to replace batteries after 10 years or has a write off, because repairs are more costly than the value of the vehicle.

Anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, so choosing electric to save the earth doesn’t factor.

When batteries catch fire , due to faulty recharging or head on collision with another electric vehicle etc, they become bombs which are intense and can’t be put out by fire brigades.

Saying all that, I still love driving a PHEV, because they are quiet and don’t pollute especially in underground car parks, which is a true environmental factor rather than the CO2 element of exhaust, which is the gas of life.

I do not disagree. However with an ICE car, my spend in total was around £4000 sterling per annum. With full EV, the costs in total was around £700. Regardless on how good or bad it is for cows, sheeps and the likes, the savings is almost six times the costs of ICE. [figures are all UK only.]

 

[Woon Chung]

but I'm pretty sure my next car will be 100% EV. Another 2 to 4 years down the road?

I have same plan. Not because it is completed result of engineering, but because I would help it to be better sooner. Baby of the EV cannot beat all grown ICE but EV is the future of us. The market is like a cold beast. If we buy more ICE, industry will improve on ICE more, if we buy more PHEV, industry improve more on PHEV, if we buy more EV, industry will put more improve on EV.