automationgame.com

bold: now try doing the same on both EV and ICE cars. im honestly intrigued over which would win the people's vote

on the side of producing batteries, i like to remind myself that, this is a technology that has matured as much as ICE has. yes, maybe it's dirty now.

but look back at the late 19th centuries, early 20th centuries. when they refined crude oil to kerosene, and got gasoline as a byproduct and those are either burned off or just dumped somewhere. only after cars came they started using it. and only by 1930s cracking were discovered, and gasolines become better and better from there on.

just another proof of advances overtime.

yes i do not know the numbers, or the actual life facts. but that is how i see it.


i actually have an idea of a challenge of hybrid cars using .lua edit

if only i could understand .lua

Batteries are actually quite recyclable, either into pieces to make new batteries or refurbished whole into lower draw applications like inhome renewable storage. Also as of right now nickel cadmium is slowly being phased out for lithium ion in the higher end cars, even the new Prius has li-ion on the upper trim. While mining the metals is certainly not great for the environment the lowered emission from increased economy with hybrids, or EV's will most likely net a positive in the long term.

Are electric cars built to last though? I'm not that educated into electric cars, but the Battery on my Andriod tablet needs to be replaced after just a year or two of constant use, moving energy from the charger to the screen and processor, how do electric car batteries hold up after a lot of use?

A tangential rejoinder question: I'd also like to know about what the increasing reliance on computer systems is having on the lifespan of modern automobiles (of any kind of energy source). One source is anecdotally claiming to me that the hardware craps out after several years such that it's not practical to keep them maintained after about 10 years or so. I'm skeptical.

Tesla has an 8 year/unlimited mileage warranty on its batteries.

Also, battery life and lifespan are both getting better with the current technological advancements.

And what the hell are you doing with your tablet that the battery only lasts a year or two?

Yeah, if it had been an Apple product you were talking about, I would have at least expe- *shot*

My Android with the bad battery is an NVIDIA shield tablet thingy, it can play PC games on roughly a 12 inch screen, so as expected, battery life is decent at best. It even had to be recalled once because the batteries overheat and cause fires.


But back on topic, I think that car makers are making a lot of the same choices that where being made in the 1980s. Trying to cram as much technology in their cars, in an effort to look "Cool". I'm not sure if by computers, you mean ECU dependencies, or tiny knick knacks like GM's electronic parking brake and Honda, who's bringing back self activating windshield wipers, also a technology from the 1980s, which, you guessed it, wasn't reliable. Sure, you could say that it's like the Turbocharger, it failed in the 50s, but it came back and made a big success, but it's impossible to know right now.

I guess I mean cars in which the computer systems are heavily integrated into the various user-oriented functions of the car e.g. BMW's iDrive, or even to a lesser extent in my Civic, in which all the audio settings, UI, Bluetooth etc. all gets navigated through the same system. Though I wonder if the impact of those on reliability and longetivity is any different from computer systems that control ECU, TC, ESC, torque vectoring etc. or the ICE/motor power distribution + KERS units that hybrid cars generally rely on.

here's an analogy

your phone is a small village.
and the battery is a generator powering the small village.


now the engine could power the village by itself, but it has to constantly run like 70-90% load nonstop.
or another option, add more engines, like add 9 more engines, with a total of 10 engines. they could all power the village at the same time with each engine only running at 10% load.

which options do you think would last longer?
maybe you think there's also a complexity problem, reliability problem. and it's true, but that is offset by the pure numbers of 'energy source' that could cover for the ones that failed.

that's what TESLA did with THOUSANDS of small batteries, instead of a couple big batteries


TL;DR
you cant compare the battery in everyday appliances to the one used for automotives.

and iirc, they are also using different grades of batteries

I understand now that less stress is being put on the batteries, but saying that a higher quality battery will last longer doesn't seem very relevant to me. It would be the same logic as saying that a Rolls Royce Phantom will run for longer than a Ford Crown Victoria. Yes, one is certainly built to a higher degree than another, but one needs to last, and the other iust doesn't.

I admit, electric cars just aren't my specialty, and I'm really only going by what I know with modern electronics.

There is one hurdle with hybrids and electric cars that is seldom talked about: the true cost.

In the early 1900s there were many electric cars on the road. Without the infrastructure of gas stations that we enjoy today, for many this was a more practical solution. In the 1920s when women first started driving they were targeted for advertising as a car that was quiet and cleaner to operate. In other words: a woman's car. Priced around $2500 (give or take)
Seems rather cheap except that you could purchase a gas-powered car in those days for around $800.

While I could buy a Chevy Volt and enjoy the added fuel economy, I could just as easily buy a Chevy Cruze and have $20,000 left over to fuel the thing. It'll take a while to get through that $20,000 to shore up the difference. The same can be said about complete electric cars as well. An example would be the Mercedes SLS. They built an all electric version which even outran the gas-powered SLS Black Edition in a drag race. But the downside was the added price. For the price of the electric version you could instead get the gas-powered SLS plus 20,000 gallons of gasoline. A tremendous gap.

Furthermore the proposed "solutions" for this price gap are a joke. Cars will be advertised with a "tax credit" I'm sorry but I'm already skeptical of a car that someone has to bribe me to buy. By placing regulations and tax credits on such alternative designs you also threaten quality. Why try to improve the design when your current one will "just do"?

On the other hand, if you take away all tax credits, subsidies, and regulations concerning electric vehicles. Then manufactures will research them not because they have to, but because they want to. When someone develops an electric car capable of standing on its own without market manipulation, then other manufacturers will want to get in on that source of revenue and bring true competition to the field. Competition alone is what brings us lower prices and better quality.

That's a bit why Telsa went with the high-end market first, this way they can essentially sell a 7-Series competitor, for around the same price but with electric motors instead.

Their next vehicle, the model 3, is going to be sold at around 35k. Still a bit far from the price of a compact, but they aren't aiming for that just yet. And if you take into account that it will be a lot cheaper to power, it might not end up very far behind to something like a Ford Fusion with decent equipement over the lifetime of the car.

And the thing not to forget is that they will only get cheaper as technology evolves.




There is actually one of those already on the market, the model S

Ever since I saw Mighty Car Mods latest episodes on EV conversions I have really wanted to build a Seven-esque EV. If you can keep the weight near or even below what it would weigh with a standard drivetrain while still having decent range I think it could be fantastic. Instant peak torque all of the time in something that lightweight would be more like a rocket than a car.

Cheers - Racer13

Well not really, Tesla is almost a public/private fusion when it comes to finance, their cars benefit from huge tax breaks and elon musk has used another of his companies, solar city, to help it's battery technology, solar city has a huge amount of state and federal credit for solar panels. All told elon musk heads companies that take in about $5 billion worth of tax benefits. But you know what, I don't care because he's finally put electric cars back on the playing field, and he's helping bring the cost of solar energy, next gen batteries, and even space flight, down because of those benefits.

Yeah, unfortunately Tesla is anything but free market. Elon Musk is a genius marketer though and sells it that way. :s