1 in 5 electric vehicle owners in California switched back to gas

https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-5-electric-vehicle-owners-164149467.html

by jgalt212 • 5 years ago

22 47 5 years ago

One thing that is fascinating about the last decade or so is the extent to which the narrative that the media is pushing as "obvious" and "inevitable" is out of synch with what the actual facts on the ground are or what is realistic or actually technically or economically feasible. Some examples of farcical media narratives:

humans will settle Mars soon.

-Not happening. Primarily due to radiation and general life support problems.

driverless cars are just around the corner.

-No they are not for various, obvious technical reasons that should be apparent to anybody who both understands technology and the real world of driving.

solar power is inevitable and will be widespread and cheap

-solar power will always be lower energy density than chemical power or nuclear power. It will always have higher fixed costs per unit generated than large scale hydro. Solar takes a lot of space and is expensive to produce low density power.

Battery power electric cars are going to be in broad demand by consumers soon.

-I doubt it. Range is limited. Battery technology has not advanced significantly in the past decade. I think more widespread public transportation (e.g. trains) is more likely as hydrocarbon fuels become more expensive.

Run away global warming is inevitable or it is a human tractable problem that we can solve by spending money on new technologies.

-It is actually really complicated. There are very complicated feedback loops at work. It is not as simple as more CO2 in the atmosphere higher temperatures. For one thing as CO2 concentrations increase plants grow faster and turn more CO2 into solid compounds. Ditto for temperatures. Additionally there is a tragedy of the commons effect about CO2 emissions.

The Earth has had much higher CO2 in the past and life has survived and often thrived. Also sometimes CO2 did increase rapidly such as when there were massive flood basalt eruptions for example.

I could go on on topics the media gets wrong...

admax88q• 5 years ago

The Earth has had much higher CO2 in the past and life has survived and often thrived.

There's no doubt that life in general will survive, but there is doubt that the comfortable post industrial life that most of us enjoy will survive.

CameronNemo5• 5 years ago

Additionally it will impose a tight chokepoint on all life, with little time for them to adapt.

Adaptation usually happens over the course of generations, but thethe changes occurring are happening over the course of a single organism's lifetime.

Our ecological systems will lose so much diversity and genetic history.

TchoBeer• 5 years ago

No they are not for various, obvious technical reasons that should be apparent to anybody who both understands technology and the real world of driving.

Wanna explain to me why? From what I've seen, a driverless cars within the next 10 years is feasible, and a driverless car within the next 20 years seems likely.

yumraj• 5 years ago

Wanna explain to me why? From what I've seen, a driverless cars within the next 10 years is feasible, and a driverless car within the next 20 years seems likely.

Weren’t they saying the same thing 10 years ago. As an example this Google video is just a little over 10 year old: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bp9KBrH8H04

Driverless cars are a classic example of last 10% taking 90% of the time.

Merrill• 5 years ago

Driverless cars? They should test them in Boston in the Spring, after all the lane markings are gone, at night in the rain.

Testing in cities with grid street systems and visible lane markings during fair weather in the daytime is not informative.

pkolaczk2• 5 years ago

Even with visible lane markings, in the day time, Tesla FSD can't do very basic maneuvers like taking left turns that cross the opposite traffic. Or stopping at red light reliably. Autonomic cars are still inferior to human drivers and it will take years to change that.

CameronNemo5• 5 years ago

I feel like this comment is getting the thread really off track.

mlindner2• 5 years ago

If I could flag it I would. It's completely off topic and also mostly incorrect.

mlindner2• 5 years ago

humans will settle Mars soon.
-Not happening. Primarily due to radiation and general life support problems.

You don't really understand the science here. The radiation effects are vastly overstated and the media loves to fearmonger them. Secondly the life support issue is a solved problem if you have the mass payload ability. Yes if you don't have a large rocket capable of taking many tens to hundreds of tons of payload to Mars, then there's life support issues, otherwise there isn't.

avmich3• 5 years ago

humans will settle Mars soon.
-Not happening. Primarily due to radiation and general life support problems.

You must be kidding. We have fastest progress in launch systems since 1960s. Seriously, when was the last time multiple spaceships for human spaceflight carried tests at the same time in USA alone?

Radiation and weightlessness - two biggest roadblocks for interplanetary flights - are known for quite some time, there are some plans and propositions, even though experiments are mostly long-term ISS flights. But it's hard not to see progress - would you say, for example, that Moon flight can't be used as a stepping stone in preparing Mars expeditions?

DrScump• 5 years ago

  You must be kidding.

No. The key word is settle, not "visit" or "explore". You won't have meaningful numbers of people wanting to settle there, because there's no "there" there.

anonuser123456• 5 years ago

Battery technology has not advanced significantly in the past decade.

ok buddy.

rsj_hn2• 5 years ago

Actually surprised it's only 1 in 5, because we don't have anything close to a useful charging grid deployed in this country, and it will take some time before we can get one. If PEVs can retain 80% of the people who try them with the current lack of supporting infrastructure, that's a pretty good outcome for PEV manufacturers.

olliej• 5 years ago

I also wonder how much of it is due to the dearth of decent ranged vehicles - my only option for my daily commute is still a Tesla unless I have guaranteed access to charging, which I don’t.

It wouldn’t take too many “well I can’t get home unless I find a place to plug my car in and wait an hour” before I went back to gas

CameronNemo5• 5 years ago

Well the study was from 2012 to 2018, so the numbers are probably even better nowadays.

WheelsAtLarge• 5 years ago

I think this highlights the point that we need more charging stations. Ya, I know it sounds obvious but someone is going to get very rich solving this problem. There is no question that gas automobiles are going to be replaced by electric ones. The question is, "who is going to get rich replacing gas stations?" Talk about a problem asking to be solved.

rsj_hn2• 5 years ago

I think it would be nice to have a Chinese style removable battery that you can drive to a station and they'll swap it out with a fully charged one. Say enough to give you 50 miles of range and get you home.

cbhl• 5 years ago

A dual-charger Chargepoint is something like $12k, so for a large tech company it's straightforward to throw in a dozen or so when they're putting up a new building and parking lot/garage.

For the bay area, though, I think the major constraint is actually transmission -- how many amps the utility can deliver to your campus. PG&E has some technical debt here, as the public safety power shut-offs and fires of the last few years have shown.

$dayjob often has a waitlist of folks waiting for the finite EV chargers; folks with backup gas tanks (plug-in hybrid EVs) and Teslas have to give priority to folks who need to charge to get home.

Beyond "just add more chargers" it would be nice to make the apps better reflect ground truth. I'll find chargers that are listed as available in the app but are actually unavailable: Chargers in basement levels that have been closed due to lower COVID-induced parking volumes. In garages that are only open 9-5 M-F. Or ones that are broken and wrapped with caution tape.

I think every long-distance-EV-drive story I've seen has at least one case of "just having enough range to make it to a charger" only to find the charger is broken.

perilunar• 5 years ago

"Standard home outlets generally put out about 120 volts of power at what electric vehicle aficionados call "Level 1" charging, while the high-powered specialty connections offer 240 volts of power and are known as "Level 2."

'volts of power' is a new one. Sigh.

electriclove2• 5 years ago

Does anyone here know someone (in California) who purchased an EV between 2012 and 2018 and then went back to a gas car? The results of this study do not jive with my anecdotal experience.

CameronNemo5• 5 years ago

what kind of cars did people you know buy? Nissan leaves with small batteries and poor cooling tech, or early Tesla models (which were much more expensive than the Model 3).

Frankly I'm surprised the number isn't higher. It bodes well for the new class of vehicles like Model 3's and Chevy Bolts which have longer range, better cooling tech, better prices, and faster charging options.

As the charging networks get built out, the retention rate will only improve.

electriclove2• 5 years ago

Leaf, eGolf, and Volt leases. And Model S and X purchases. I think you make a great point though that the time period didn't include many Model 3s. I think a follow up survey might see even less going back to ICE

thephyber2• 5 years ago

Yes, me. I did it, but I enjoyed the EV and will very likely buy another.

I bought a used gen 1 Leaf (2 model years old) in 2013 and traded it in for an ICE VW in 2019 after I was faced with the decision to either buy a new gem 1 Leaf battery pack at full price (it was out of warranty so 0% pro-rated) or get another car. The car I wanted at the time was a VW and I didn’t think the e-Golf was a mature enough platform. I can’t explain why I didn’t go with another brand EV except that I like to buy used with very low miles and only 2-3 years old (my preferred sweet spot of value).

As mentioned elsewhere, the gen 1 Leaf had inferior battery management which likely contributed to the shorter battery life and lower battery value. I was also a little peeved that gen 2 and 3 battery packs were not available for the gen 1 body/drivetrain so it felt like an inferior investment to put 50% of the original purchase price into a new battery pack and still have to deal with the same old car body. It was also getting a little tiresome to have to remember to charge it _every_ day. A gen 3 would have avoided this issue and charging stations at my work place would have alleviated some of the anxiety of forgetting to plug it in (only happened 2 times, but both impacted my ability to commute).

nwah1• 5 years ago

Finding charging stations can be a challenge, and if you are renting an apartment you likely don't have access to a garage. And if you want and affordable car, then you are stuck with older used EVs with poor range. And if you are in a colder climate, the vehicles don't hold much of a charge in winter, although that may not apply in most of California.

All of these are solid reasons for someone to find EVs impractical.

pkolaczk2• 5 years ago

In many areas of the world EVs are more expensive to buy, much more expensive to repair, and not really cheaper to drive, because electricity is about the same price as gas. Add to that they are less convenient and slower on large distances because of the time wasted for looking for a charging station and then charging, and I can see how most people don't want them now.

okareaman• 5 years ago

1 in 5 motor-propelled owners in California switched back to horse and buggy

CameronNemo5• 5 years ago

Meh you could take that position, or you could recognize that the charging networks are sparse, and we are only just now getting EVs with decent ranges at decent prices.

I certainly couldn't deal with a Ford Focus Electric or Nissan Leaf. But a Model 3 or a Bolt has >3x the range and they charge faster.

ppf2• 5 years ago

Horse and buggy is more sustainable than either ICE or EV. It's about the most efficient way to convert the power of the sun into forward movement!

Const-me2• 5 years ago

the most efficient way to convert the power of the sun into forward movement

Very inefficient, and the difference is several orders of magnitude.

A horse needs 2-40 acres of land: https://horses.extension.org/how-much-land-do-i-need-for-a-h...

Photovoltaic panels can generate 500 kilowatts on 2 acres. Tesla's V3 supersharger is 250 kilowatt, adds 170 miles in 15 minutes of charging.

If the sun is shining for 6 hours, photovoltaic panels on 2 acres charge Teslas to drive 8000 miles. For a horse, the figure is like 40 miles per day.

rini17• 5 years ago

Most efficient means of transportation is a bicycle. Maaaybee if there were bicycles for horses...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance

thephyber2• 5 years ago

When motor-propelled was first invented, gas stations weren’t readily available everywhere and there were lots of things that remained unstandardized. I feel like some of the EV->ICE reversion is justified, but as these issues are ironed out, there will be fewer motor-powered experiences which are inferior to the buggy-powers ones of the time, so they will be rarer.

m463• 5 years ago

I can see maybe an early limited-range EV being a little more challenging to use for the rest of the family. Usually the person who buys it is technically aware of everything, but a teenage kid can get into trouble balancing nav and charge.

But for cars with a reasonable battery size:

- teslas are usable everywhere - they have fast charging and lots of chargers - and the nav system integrates charging into your trip.

- non-tesla SAE/chademo fast chargers are not as bad as they used to be - with charging reaching acceptable levels of predictable and more plentiful.

Another change is that businesses have figured out chargers attract business. They've figured out how to get charging working with people's lifestyles. There are lots of malls and stores like target/walmart with chargers now, and people come to overlap charging and shopping. "I need to charge, maybe I will pop by the store and do both" is pretty powerful.

Hithredin2• 5 years ago

The ancien origin form of "petrol station" was a post office where riders could swap horse.

Would it be so difficult to establish a standard to achieve a similar thing? - stop at a station - swap the battery - go

Even faster in theory than gas...

yeahr4579• 5 years ago

Sounds like a good idea but I bet people would mess it up somehow! I personally would never accept something that can explode from a stranger!

andyana• 5 years ago

I might be mistaken, but isn't this how some BBQ propane tank exchanges are done?

klft• 5 years ago

Better Place already tried this and failed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)

Hithredin2• 5 years ago

Thanks for the link that's a good case study. However that was a bit early compared to the actual market.

Wondering if a brand of petrol stations could disrupt the market by suddenly introducing this. Without an existing network by the roads or a very large investment, it must be very hard to penetrate the market.

ivan1783• 5 years ago

Can somebody Email Mr. Dominick Reuter and ask him wtf a "volt of power" is?

hulitu• 5 years ago

I think it's something like Holy Emperor. Or maybe some special type of volt like the Redbull energy drink. Sarcasm aside, there are a lot of mistakes made by electronics engineers when they use a "power source" of 5V or current source of 12V. Details are tough.

airhead969• 5 years ago

Universal swappable battery packs with loaners and original return service is the way to go. Remember the Model S had that capability but it was never deployed.

It's critical to killing ICE to get EVs right.

1 in 5 electric vehicle owners in California switched back to gas

Related Stories