Every Vehicle Should Have an Electric Motor, Even If It Doesn’t Have a Plug
cleantechnica.com
cleantechnica.com
Already they are very popular in China: https://insideevs.com/news/340006/big-in-china-cheap-tiny-el...
What would a Tesla Model 3 look like if it had half the range, no frunk, and much lower performance? (ie. limited to 120km/h) How light, cheap, and small could we take it without utterly abandoning safety?
Basically, the kind of vehicle designed just for inner-city commutes and picking up goods.
If these vehicles became more common we would see a 'peace dividend' in the car safety wars - the other vehicles on the road would be lighter, so crashes would be less dangerous (maybe combined with automatic crash avoidance as well) and breaking times shorter, so crumple zones and other big heavy features could be reduced.
https://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/subsidy-fraud-reforms-ch...
Another example, have you noticed how headlights have gotten noticeably (blindingly?) bright in recent years?
Not true. 2 modern, big cars crashing into each other at typical urban speeds usually mean no serious injuries. But try crashing 2 LSV at 50 Km/h and see what happens.
Also cars don’t only hit other cars.
This may be wasteful, but it's safer. So it's not a net loss.
> Also cars don’t only hit other cars.
They also hit people and big cars can cater for this more efficiently (see crash tests for big Volvos for example), as well as hard walls and trees, where the answer is quite obvious.
You’re missing the point again. Safer than what? If everyone drove low-speed light vehicles, we would be safer too.
We’re in a “safety” arms race, where you’re only safe if you’re in the largest size vehicle possible. Buy an escalade and you are “safe”. Buy a Yaris and you’re risking your life for better gas milage and cheaper car payments.
... and electric bicycles.
And then the additional mass is making it more dangerous, not less.
The problem is: it's relatively expensive. You can have a proper, "normal" ICE car in that price. Probably the best case for mini-vehicles like these is a sharing model. At least, that's the thinking behind the Volkswagen's entry into the market: https://www.seat.com/company/news/cars/seat-minimo-mwc.html
https://www.aixam.com/en/minauto/access
These cars are popular among teenagers in France and Italy as they can be driven from 16. Compared to a scooter they are safer, and you can have passengers and cargo space. They are severely underpowered though (anytime they need to go uphill they cause a traffic jam), and the diesel engine is probably except from emissions requirements.
Then people wouldn’t buy it or at least different people. Every Tesla driver I met told me first how much fun it is to drive.
The interior of Tesla feels plastic and amateur for it's price range, no one outside of the cult says nice stuff about their frame either: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-model-3-design-profit...
That's a rather strong statement! Do you have any source for it?
> most people who actually enjoy driving prefer ICE
I don't know where you got that idea from--a quick survey of google results for "Model S review" gives me the opposite impression: It has a "fun-to-drive nature" [1], "it’s addictively fast" [2], "fast and great to drive" [3]. The only negative quote I could find was that it "can certainly hack the pace, but it doesn’t bring much sporting engagement" [4], about the 2013 version before any improvements (not that I know they changed the reviewers opinion).
> no one outside of the cult says nice stuff
If I was being uncharitable I might say it seems you're in a different, but equally dogmatic cult.
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/model-s
[2] https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/tesla/model-s
[3] https://www.motortrend.com/news/2013-motor-trend-car-of-the-...
Most people buy things based on marketing.
> most people who actually enjoy driving prefer ICE
Did you just make that up? It sounds a lot like gatekeeping.
> it feels like driving a big go-kart
That's a big plus for some.
> no one outside of the cult says nice stuff about their frame either: [link]
The linked article is content marketing for a teardown consultant who wasn't privy to tradeoffs made during the design process.
There is a difference between buying Channel products based on marketing and buying your power tools based on marketing. The difference is that one is marketing for actual spec and durability the other for status and gimmicks or worst outright lies.
> Did you just make that up? It sounds a lot like gatekeeping.
The sales number speaks for it self, along with TSLA Financial Results.
>> it feels like driving a big go-kart and handles rather poorly.
> That's a big plus for some.
Not sure what you're getting at, people who would not buy low range and specially lower performance cars somehow would prefer go-kart like feeling and handling?
> The linked article is content marketing for a teardown consultant who wasn't privy to tradeoffs made during the design process.
Calling Munro a marketing consultant is a poor effort.
So I looked at all the viable cars, my summer house is 440 km from here and I would like to be able to get there in an emergency on one charge and I have a big cat that needs room + family. I've been saying for years that I want an electric but I want a "real" car maker to build a proper one. So now we are here with two new competitors.
The I-Pace has too short range and too little space. The E-tron has too short range and too little space. In the end the model x was the only viable one for my criteria.
My biggest counter before to the tesla was the build quality, but after inspecting several model x and testing them, it is noting like the old model s versions with rattling windows etc. It actually feels like a nice car.
Is there assesment available of full environmental impact of an ICE vs electric car in a country like US (with a certain mix of green and non-green sources of electricity)? Generally, more stuff goes into an EV, so the production is probably higher impact - I wonder how the all-inclusive numbers look like.
Tesla doesn't even do any traditional marketing. They are selling hundreds of thousands of cars mostly by word of mouth and wildly enthusiastic owners spreading the love. I believe Tesla is also the highest rated car by owner satisfaction?
Even in annual sales, it's only recently been surpassed by the Model S.
Furthermore, while it does do relatively close to half the range of a Model S (and the gp did state "half"), given Tesla's advances in range, along with Nissan's own advances in battery longevity, I don't think they're skimping on cheap tech for low range. One could go a lot lower and still have a very usable city car.
All that said, the general point was: would it sell. The Leaf is extremely popular in Europe where (in my highly subjective opinion) car buying is slightly more rational/practical: the US market seems to favour mass-for-the-sake-of-it (clearly evident even comparing the range of cars available on the market in Europe vs the US), so I don't think smaller would do well there.
[1] https://www.autonews.com/article/20180716/RETAIL01/180719854...
There's another measure that would have saved everyone a lot of money and emissions: better aerodynamics. Car makers have been building terrible designs for decades because gasoline was cheap, but we know they could do much better. A car with good aerodynamics (like the Prius by the way, or the Hyundai Ioniq) saves enough fuel to not need a hybrid drive train.
I find it hard to believe aerodynamics would make that much of a difference for your average rush-hour commute, but maybe that’s my urban bias showing.
For a less extreme comparison, the (2006) Mini Cooper S vs. the Prius I get 13.45 Wh/Km difference, meaning 0.7 litres per 100 Km (at constant 80 Km/h, only due to air resistance).
Perhaps one day it'll be possible to attach the self-driving car to the back of the car in front on boring commutes to get rid of this factor. ;-)
You see this electric motor pattern in a variety of cars. The current gen Acura NSX has the front wheels driven by the electric motors, rears driven by an ICE engine. The Mitsubishi Outlander comes in a PHEV version, with about 50km of electric only range, switching over to ICE as needed.
While I ended up with the Nissan Leaf (battery electric vehicle, the plug in kind), currently about one year of owner ship, I do miss for long distance, at speed, travel of gasoline cars.
I used to lament the impending loss of manual transmission that comes with electrifying cars. But the torque more than makes up for that.
All-electric charging speeds are quite good now and getting better, and any numbers quoted today need to be rechecked a few months from now, especially with Teslas and the Supercharger v3 upgrades rolling out.
It’s simply irresponsible to continue pushing solutions that perpetuate our carbon based transportation system while the grid is steadily becoming more and more green.
Cost comparisons of vehicles should take total cost of ownership into account, not just the sticker price which can be offset by savings in other aspects of usage.
* A PHEV with good EV range (such as 40+miles) will cover most commutes. Also most car trips are short range (such as going to the grocery stors). These could all be pure EV miles.
* There is limited worldwide capacity for battery production and battery price is still high. The amount of batteries in a single Tesla could be used for 10 PHEV cars.
Perfect is the enemy of good. If a PHEV can get most of its miles as EV and an occasional trip using ICE, the effect on carbon reduction is almost as good as a pure EV with much fewer battery costs. Also the weaknesses of batteries (such as long charge time compared to filling a gas tank) don't matter for a PHEV. And it's a great fit for the current state of EV charging infrastructure. A level 1 charger (regular 120 volt plug) can charge a typical PHEV car from empty to full overnight. It would be much simpler and less costly to get regular 120 volt plugs installed into all parking spots in an apartment compared to trying to get level 2 (240volt) plugs.
The solution to the battery production capacity problem isn’t going to be to throw up our hands and say “oh well, guess we have to make compromised cars.”
The solution is to figure it out and increase battery production radically. 10,000 fold if need be. Nobody is saying it will be easy. Weak solutions with highly polluting smaller engines (yes, small engines pollute much more per mile and even per gallon used) are fine in some cases temporarily for filling some of the gaps but they aren’t going to take us where we need to get to with emission reduction.
Or are 15 amp 240v circuits not a thing?
Other than the fact that newer residential buildings are sometimes 208v in N. America.
Unfortunately, the infrastructure just isn't there so I had to go for a petrol hybrid.
I have no driveway, and there aren't even parking bays on the street. As a result, there's no way to charge my car at home and that's a deal-breaker.
Some friends who don't have chargers at work charge at public chargers in their area.
Now my contribution to the article is that large mining vehicles have used this principle since quite some time. The largest slag trucks in the world are all operating according to this principle so it's not that new.
Would love to check out a car operating to that principle!
Alas, new pickup trucks that are worth owning for my needs are typically in the $45-60k+ range, and I don't have high hopes that hybrid or all-electric will be kind to the sticker price either.
I think it's a great idea, honestly. No low hanging prop shaft or exhaust to limit your breakover height, loads of torque. You'd also get the benefit of a super tight traction control feedback loop and independent power to every wheel, which would be just magic in icy or muddy conditions.
Maybe it's just the perspective of the few pictures I've seen, but the Rivian truck doesn't quite seem to have as much ground clearance as I would like. When your driveway is a half mile long and you get caught on your way home from an emergency run to the veterinarian by a blizzard, getting stuck in a drift at the end of the driveway really, really, really, really sucks (yes, that happened). Carrying a 30lb dog with vertigo that far in 10 foot visibility isn't what I would call fun at all.
The economics apparently don't support hybrid for very long.
For what it's worth, pure EVs make incredibly efficient use of space and feel bigger than they look, largely because of the flat floor and the flexible bulkhead placement. The drivetrain components are so compact that you have a hugely flexible design envelope for the passenger cabin.
It also consumes just about the same in gas as a Prius even when not charged which just shows Toyota does not know what the fuck they are doing.
The Volt is 42 MPG and the Prius Prime, which is the competitor to the Volt, is 54 MPG.
https://www.hybridcars.com/what-make-more-sense-chevrolet-vo... (among other sources).
Toyota needs to go back to the drawing board for a hybrid rather than bolting a battery to a Prius.
- Prius Prime does qualify for HOV lanes
- Prius Prime is much quieter than previous generation Prius
- Prius Prime acceleration in my experience is just fine.
Your ICE commuter is burning lots more gas than any electric/hybrid if you are stuck in traffic at low speed for any amount of time.
The crossover was the original type of car, if you think about it. In the olden days, all cars were tall and upright.
Generally crossovers/SUVS have smaller wheelbases, are easier to see out of, and easier to park. I find the extra space quite useful and while my Forester XT doesn't feel as good as my WRX, it does feel better than the vast majority of sedans I've driven. Sure a BMW 3 series or Tesla model 3 feels sportier.
A CR-V also has AWD which not every sedan is available with, giving it all season capability.
Also, the CR-V has acceptable fuel economy. 30 MPG on EPA's combined cycle...the same as the Accord.
Also, many of them drive very well. The new CR-V is a capable vehicle at highway speeds. No less so than an Accord.
And they don’t drive better. They suffer worse body roll than their sedan cousins, and in my experience have a rough ride to compensate for the deficiencies of the chassis. Give me a sedan or hot hatch any day.
Compare with say Tesla where a single motor runs you over $3000 and they call it "cheap".