Imagine a car having say 300 to 400 miles of range and having a battery that's roughly half the weight of today's batteries and "fully" charges in 10 minutes. That would be awesome! The real exciting thing is this is one of several new battery technologies being prototyped. The next 5-7 years are going to be exciting for EVs.
Yeah incredible. EVs are a bit questionable at the moment but I have no doubt that in 5 years they will just be straight up better than gas cars in every way.
Concerning part is that China has a massive lead in this industry, and the lone American company that can compete is being targeted by the petty regime we have in power.
How is Tesla being targeted by Congress or by this Administration? I'm honestly not aware of anything nefarious going on. Isn't Tesla being helped by the 100% tariff this Administration has placed on BYD imports?
The average is something like 30km per day, if people aren't convinced by the current offering it isn't because of range or charging time, price is a much bigger barrier
The average is irrelevant, look at the maximum. If you own one car it needs to work well for all of your car needs, including visiting your mountain cabin, driving to see your family in another state every couple months, road trips etc.
Range and charging time was the biggest barrier for me in buying an electric car because I need to drive 350 miles every month or so, and don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive.
The second barrier is I know that battery tech is rapidly getting better, which means an electric car today will rapidly devalue, and I'll have a much better experience buying one in 5-10 years when the self-driving features are really honed in.
> The second barrier is I know that battery tech is rapidly getting better, which means an electric car today will rapidly devalue
It's like PCs in the 1990s. There were big advances in processing power, memory, and storage every 2-3 years so you didn't want to lock yourself in with something too crazy. Cars are something I buy every 10-15 years, so I have to wait for things to settle a bit before I'll be willing to buy. I think there's going to be a seismic shift in the market in 5-7 years.
It has to be really hard being an automaker right now. You need a lot of capital, which isn't cheap at the moment, to expand your capabilities into EV production whose sales may not take off for another few years. But you can't ignore the EV market altogether or you risk getting left behind. Crazy market!
That might be convenient, but what if owning an EV that was useful for 90% of your trips was also much, much cheaper? You can always rent a longer-range vehicle (analogous to buying a plane ticket when you want to go farther than it makes sense to drive)?
The process of renting a car would take just as long as charging on most people’s “regular” long trips. (Almost) Nobody is going to rent a car to visit their family that’s 3 hours away every 2 months.
Yeah, that's where they start getting more interesting for sure. The trick is actually getting there, especially down-market. My wife, as an example, currently drives a 2003 RAV4 that she paid $6000 CAD for a couple of years ago. It's got enough capacity with the seats folded down to carry the kit that she needs for work and has a 600km range that can be "recharged" in 10 minutes.
I'm fully aware that there's no apples-to-apples comparison to be had here because equivalent EVs in 2003 were... not great nor plentiful and definitely not available on the current used market. They did actually make a 2003 RAV4 Hybrid but my understanding is that due to the increased complexity the maintenance costs were pretty brutal.
Digging into this long tail though is going to be the key to getting to the tipping point where there are more EVs on the road than not. She has absolutely no reason to "upgrade" her car until either gasoline becomes so eyewateringly expensive that it makes obvious financial sense to pay a loan on an EV every month instead of buying gas or the car itself breaks and there's something that's competitive with the used small SUV market.
There have been many safety features added since 2003. Things like electronic stability control (not available on Toyota models until 2004), automatic emergency braking, backup/parking sensors, lane monitoring/departure warnings, cross traffic alert/braking, more air bags, better structural / crush zones, backup / 360° cameras, etc.. Someone could think those were enough all by itself to upgrade.
> Someone could think those were enough all by itself to upgrade
Someone could, yeah. I think you'd have a hard time convincing her to spend that $25k for those things, especially given that the Solterra has half the cargo capacity compared to the '03 RAV4 (30 cu.ft. vs. 68 cu.ft.).
There's interesting things all over with this. I've got a 2016 Tacoma and absolutely rely on the backup camera every time I back up because the rearward visibility is terrible. When I drive her RAV4... it's not necessary at all because the vehicle itself has amazing visibility.
The other thing to take into account... what are the odds that the Solterra is going to make it to 2045 without requiring significant/expensive maintenance? She's had the RAV4 for around 4 years now and so far all we've had to do are brake pads and oil changes.
Huh! I wonder how the site I got that number from got the cargo capacity so wrong. Looks like the battery itself has a 100,000 mile/8 year warranty (whichever comes first) which is honestly longer than I expected.
Well, we’ll see in 5-10 years when she’s ready to replace the RAV4. She had to drive 300km for work today which looks like it would have been right on the edge of the range of that unit. Would’ve been cheaper in an EV, but a significantly longer day since there’s no high-capacity charging infrastructure available on the shortest route to get there.
This always comes up as a suggestion. I would love to see the numbers where that works out. The costs of renting even a couple times a month (far less than 10% of trips) will very quickly make it cheaper to just own an ICE vehicle.
It gets really bad if you dare to drive out of state because you get hit with extra mileage fees. For example every year I go camping for a week - driving from the midwest to Utah in a full size suv or truck (need 4wd and space for climbing/camping gear). Last time I ran the numbers (2022) it was around $1500 for a rental for that trip. (1k base rental for a week, 350 for mileage fees, and 180 for towing fee because I like to bring a small teardrop camper)
I've kept a close eye on this since I would love an EV, but it remains much cheaper to keep paying for my ICE vehicle than buying an EV and occasionally renting.
There's a huge list of other drawbacks to account for as well:
- the non-financial costs of time spent reserving, picking up, dropping off, fighting surprise fees, etc.
- worrying about damage (most rentals don't allow off pavement driving, or will void insurance if you do)
- the fact that you can't have anything custom (no roof rack for a kayak, no snow tires or chains for driving through the mountains, no winch or recovery points, no interior improvements like stereo or dash cam, the list goes on)
> drive 350 miles every month or so, and don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive.
An hour or 2? A good rule of thumb is needing to stop for about 20 mins every 2 hours of driving (conservative numbers). This might not even be extra time depending on how often you stop anyway.
If you can charge at home, count the number of minutes you spend filling up your current vehicle every month. I spend less time waiting on my EV ( 0 minutes/month ) than I did filling up my diesel ( 20 minutes/month ).
When you factor in the time that the auto-schedule defrost on my EV saves in the winter, I definitely save a lot of time compared to my old ICE. The fact that it costs about 1/4 of the cost per mile is great too.
Cheaper small-battery EVs aren’t exactly replacing petrol cars either. The real future is plug-in hybrids. All the fuel savings of a short range EV and none of the range anxiety or slow mid-day refueling.
I'm pro EV (we own 2), and have taken some very long trips in mine. However I would love to have to make less stops (not to mention the fact that many people live in areas where any trip outside of their immediate area is impractical)
This is awesome. Will be interesting to see how long it takes for the cost to come down, and how long a solid state battery will live for. Will there ever be the option to move your 1,000,000 mile battery from your old dilapidated car to your brand new car that you bought without a battery? 600 miles of range definitely opens up new opportunities, since if you assume about 2/3rs of that range is available in winter driving, you can do a comfortable 400 miles without recharging.
30 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 79.2 ms ] threadConcerning part is that China has a massive lead in this industry, and the lone American company that can compete is being targeted by the petty regime we have in power.
Better yet, what policies do you think we should be pushing?
Are you suggesting that Tesla is struggling to compete because our government is targeting them more than, say, BYD?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41050278
Range and charging time was the biggest barrier for me in buying an electric car because I need to drive 350 miles every month or so, and don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive.
The second barrier is I know that battery tech is rapidly getting better, which means an electric car today will rapidly devalue, and I'll have a much better experience buying one in 5-10 years when the self-driving features are really honed in.
It's like PCs in the 1990s. There were big advances in processing power, memory, and storage every 2-3 years so you didn't want to lock yourself in with something too crazy. Cars are something I buy every 10-15 years, so I have to wait for things to settle a bit before I'll be willing to buy. I think there's going to be a seismic shift in the market in 5-7 years.
It has to be really hard being an automaker right now. You need a lot of capital, which isn't cheap at the moment, to expand your capabilities into EV production whose sales may not take off for another few years. But you can't ignore the EV market altogether or you risk getting left behind. Crazy market!
I'm fully aware that there's no apples-to-apples comparison to be had here because equivalent EVs in 2003 were... not great nor plentiful and definitely not available on the current used market. They did actually make a 2003 RAV4 Hybrid but my understanding is that due to the increased complexity the maintenance costs were pretty brutal.
Digging into this long tail though is going to be the key to getting to the tipping point where there are more EVs on the road than not. She has absolutely no reason to "upgrade" her car until either gasoline becomes so eyewateringly expensive that it makes obvious financial sense to pay a loan on an EV every month instead of buying gas or the car itself breaks and there's something that's competitive with the used small SUV market.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/what-makes-c...
Anyway, I'm surprised that a used one or two year old Subaru Solterra EV with less than 10,000 miles costs less than $25,000.
https://my.caredge.com/buy?radius=7000&rows=20&zip=97256&mak...
Someone could, yeah. I think you'd have a hard time convincing her to spend that $25k for those things, especially given that the Solterra has half the cargo capacity compared to the '03 RAV4 (30 cu.ft. vs. 68 cu.ft.).
There's interesting things all over with this. I've got a 2016 Tacoma and absolutely rely on the backup camera every time I back up because the rearward visibility is terrible. When I drive her RAV4... it's not necessary at all because the vehicle itself has amazing visibility.
The other thing to take into account... what are the odds that the Solterra is going to make it to 2045 without requiring significant/expensive maintenance? She's had the RAV4 for around 4 years now and so far all we've had to do are brake pads and oil changes.
> Maximum cargo volume: 63.5 cubic feet
...I'm assuming that's with the seat folded down, and assuming the RAV4 cargo capacity is also with the seats down.
https://www.subaru.com/vehicles/solterra/specs-trim.html
>what are the odds that the Solterra is going to make it to 2045 without requiring significant/expensive maintenance?
Unknown, but the Solterra is built by Toyota, FWIW.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/the-real-reason-the-2023-subaru...
Well, we’ll see in 5-10 years when she’s ready to replace the RAV4. She had to drive 300km for work today which looks like it would have been right on the edge of the range of that unit. Would’ve been cheaper in an EV, but a significantly longer day since there’s no high-capacity charging infrastructure available on the shortest route to get there.
It gets really bad if you dare to drive out of state because you get hit with extra mileage fees. For example every year I go camping for a week - driving from the midwest to Utah in a full size suv or truck (need 4wd and space for climbing/camping gear). Last time I ran the numbers (2022) it was around $1500 for a rental for that trip. (1k base rental for a week, 350 for mileage fees, and 180 for towing fee because I like to bring a small teardrop camper)
I've kept a close eye on this since I would love an EV, but it remains much cheaper to keep paying for my ICE vehicle than buying an EV and occasionally renting. There's a huge list of other drawbacks to account for as well:
- the non-financial costs of time spent reserving, picking up, dropping off, fighting surprise fees, etc.
- worrying about damage (most rentals don't allow off pavement driving, or will void insurance if you do)
- the fact that you can't have anything custom (no roof rack for a kayak, no snow tires or chains for driving through the mountains, no winch or recovery points, no interior improvements like stereo or dash cam, the list goes on)
DC fast charging is closer to ten to fifteen minutes. It's a bit longer than gas but not ridiculously long.
An hour or 2? A good rule of thumb is needing to stop for about 20 mins every 2 hours of driving (conservative numbers). This might not even be extra time depending on how often you stop anyway.
If you can charge at home, count the number of minutes you spend filling up your current vehicle every month. I spend less time waiting on my EV ( 0 minutes/month ) than I did filling up my diesel ( 20 minutes/month ).
When you factor in the time that the auto-schedule defrost on my EV saves in the winter, I definitely save a lot of time compared to my old ICE. The fact that it costs about 1/4 of the cost per mile is great too.
Most people just want a shitbox to go from A to B, which is exactly why EVs aren't selling now that all the fanboys signed in for the beta test.
The only reason they're not selling is price
> in 5-10 years when the self-driving features are really honed in.
Ah yes, Elon said it'll be there next year every year since 2012 and people still believe in this pipe dream... incredible