Are EVs a Fad? And what's a better option?

Many people are thinking we’ll all own an electric vehicle in 10 years time, but I’m not so sure. I believe there’s a better solution than EVs, at least for the foreseeable future, and it’s not fuel cells. It’s more practical, and it’ll help save the planet. But I’m happy to be convinced otherwise, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Hopefully we’ll all learn something. So, are EVs a fad?

Sources:

#bigcar

[BigCar]

UPDATE - I went out to look at buying a Plug-in hybrid today (in Seattle, USA). Volvo don't have any in stock with long waiting lists. ICE or EVs are OK to buy today. Lexus don't even sell the NX Plug-in hybrid in my state. Plug-in hybrids might be the thing to buy... if you could buy them!

[blue_lancer_es]

If we really cared for the environment we would be making products that last 20 years or more.

[DirectInput]

With cars, I think we should consume less, not desperately try to consume differently. I sold my own car a few years ago and bought an electric bike for commuting. I bought a nice one so I have a range of about 60 km on a charge on the highest assist level (where hills are basically erased), and about doubble that on the lowest. I live in northern Sweden where we get a few meters of snow each winter, but with some studded tires and a healthy attitude it's not a big deal to bike year-round. Maintanence is dirt cheap (I've even learned to do some stuff myself) and I don't need a license, insurance, yearly taxes, yearly inspections or any of that car ownership crap. My home insurance covers the bike in full in case of theft in a very generous way so not even that is a problem. If I need a car I can just hire one for the day or ask a friend if they'd borrow me theirs or their time. All this AND I'm not destroying the planet as much. Yay.

[anyonelovemusic]

As a Norwegian my self I have to inform you. As of January of 2023 electric cars became somewhat more expensive to buy here, especially the ones with a price tag above 500.000NOK. Also, the electricity prices had massively increased the last year, so if you have a charger at home then you’re not too bad off, but if you gotta rely on Fast, or even slow chargers at say gas stations and such than you actually pay less with a petrol car.
I drive a lot through my work. I’ve driven the same route, both with petrol and electric cars many times, lately I’ve taken more and more petrol cars because the electricity prices has increased to a point where I would end up spending less money on petrol than on the electricity.

[bernardcharlesworth]

Drive an electric van mainly for its cheap running cost and reliability after paying out a £3000 bill on my last vehicle gearbox. After 3 years I have not even had to change a bulb and can arrive on time at a job as it's always full of electrons every morning.

[marissakphotography]

I Never really thought my Chevy Bolt would be an environmentally good choice. I got it because I drive 60000 km/year for work and got tired of fuel prices and having to service so often. At so far I spent $200 on “maintenance” which was wipers and cabin filters. In Ontario, 🇨🇦, it costs me about $1/100km to run it if charging at home. I could never go back to a petrol car now. It seems silly and too complicated with all the moving parts. Plus it’s a fun drive… and about the same price and a Prius prime

[TheStwat]

The most environmentally friendly thing to do is to keep older and current vehicles going for as long as possible.

[rh]

Love the Honda e in the thumbnail, I have a Honda e, great tech, crap range and tiny boot. The wife has gone to a festival 150 miles away and has taken the Mercedes diesel suv instead!

[rgp]

I would love an EV but have no off street parking which, as you mentioned, is a common situation. I’ve heard ideas suggesting that plug sockets could be added to lamp posts or bollards, but it would be a massive undertaking to cater for everyone and I can’t help but feel that the environmental impact of manufacturing and installing of all of this infrastructure on virtually every street would take decades to offset.

For this reason I have had no choice to buy a new petrol car. I did my research and made sure I chose something I was very happy with and intend to keep it for a long as possible, which I feel is more environmentally friendly than buying something new for the sake of it

[shaider]

I think a good electrified train system and a break away from a car-centric infrastructure (i.e. bikes and pedestrians) like in Japan is a good alternative to converting all cars to EV's.

[morgman]

I suspect there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this, and we'll eventually settle into a range of different options that are most appropriate for the application and individual in question.

[EliotHochberg]

Here's the other problem, though, with your logic: the best and most popular plugin hybrid, the Chevy Volt, was cancelled because it wasn't selling well enough. The main issues being that people prefer SUVs (for some reason) and according to CBS News, GM was losing money on every Volt sold.

I think you also are missing the elephant in the room: China

Most vehicle development decisions made today, especially American OEMs has to do with selling vehicles in China. China has made a strong commitment to EVs, and OEMs are chasing that market, which in fairness is pretty much the largest opportunity for vehicle sales. EU and US sales are going to follow the lead of what happens in China, and the Chinese government seems to have zero interest in anything other than EVs.

[ethanwd]

To me, the PHEVs seem to be the worst of both worlds. They don't appear to give particularly great range or fuel consumption, you have the extra weight, cost, etc. Perhaps it is partly due to my living situation (in Aus, where most people seem to have access to wall sockets, if not fast-charging in their garages/car ports), but anything less than a full EV with 200km+ range seems like a compromise.... (And thus I am still driving an ICE car until I can afford an EV that meets these requirements!)

[NewJocular]

Excellent work again. You are right about plug in hybrids and there a ton of other reasons to support that. Cold climate battery performance, hard to find high speed chargers and more.

[JohanMontelius]

I agree, hybrids are the future. Take a look at Nissan Qashqai e-Power, same approach as the Mazda MX30 R-EV. I'm sure we will see more of these.

[HerrBjork]

I did a paper on the various fuels an drivetrain types in cars as a part of my education. My view on the matter is that EVs have a definite place in future mobility, but they won't ever be a catch-all solution. Pure BEVs are the best choice if you strictly drive in urban areas, with a lot of stop-n-go driving. Furthermore they're a better choice the smaller the vehicle is. For example, e-bikes and mopeds are a given to be BEVs these days, as well as things like postman and food delivery cars.

When almost exclusively driving in rural areas however, BEVs are increasingly maladjusted and ICE vehicles make increasingly more sense. Long distances at near constant high speed is about as ideal as it gets for ICEs in real-world situations, while BEVs hate both long distances and high speeds. The local pollution is also a non-issue at such low traffic density as rural areas see, at least if the ICE vehicles are even remotely modern.

Ambient temperature also matters a lot. BEVs are overly picky with it, esp. when it's too cold, while ICE-Vs don't care nearly as much. Therefore an ICE-V makes more sense the further away from the equator you live; I live in the middle of Sweden and BEVs during our winters S U C K, while they're alright otherwise. There's also the factor of keeping already existing cars on the road as long as possible, both for environmentally and economic reasons.

Two important things that'll need to be done is synthetic fuels and car size minimization. While I champion the continued use of ICEs in all but urban settings, they will of course have to run on fossil free fuels. For those I champion biogas in CNG form (b-CNG) as well as cellulose-derived ethanol (CDE as I call it), as b-CNG is typically produced from waste products while CDE can too, or from trees; a typical full-size tree can give around 350 litres of ethanol through existing enzyme treatments. This makes it within the realm of reason to power the US, Canada, the Nordics, Russia, and likely China, as well as other forest-rich countries, fully off of CDE in a sustainable manner.

Car minimization is probably the no. 1 most crucial thing regardless of power source. A lighter car will be more energy efficient, and so will a smaller one when considering drag. There ICE-Vs have another upside, as they're easier to make tiny while maintaining long range and quick fuelling times. BEVs can only go so light with current technology, and their "so light" is very heavy.

To summarize, BEVs are good in urban areas, ICE-Vs are good in rural and cold areas, and PHEVs are good in usecases that are a mix of those. There is however no doubt in my mind that the political push for EVs is mainly intended to punish poor people, as politicians routinely prove their distaste for them as well as having no care at all for the environment.

Relevant biases to disclose: I'm a classical liberal and as such is quite culturally conservative, with a special affinity for the mid 20th century. I'm also a staunch anti-urbanist, and by extension advocate for de-urbanisation

[RussellGeorge]

I've been driving an MG5 as a taxi for 3 months now. I have a regular gig which is a twice daily 60mph round trip, plus normal taxi work around my local, very hilly, small city. I have a 7kWh home charger and a driveway to park on. I also have solar panels and cheap overnight electric.
After 8000 miles my main and most surprising takeaway is that an electric motor is a far better way to power a car than an internal combustion engine. Power delivery is always immediately available. Electric drive and steering means driving fatigue has reduced significantly compared to my last car ( a diesel Vauxhall Insignia with a very nice, if slightly irksome to maintain 170bhp engine) meaning I can drive longer and earn more money. The car can go up and down steep hills effortlessly at a set 20mph without hunting for gears or revs. This is a fantastic boon for a taxi driver in my town and a real stress reliever.
Range anxiety is not a thing. Leaving the house every morning with 200-250 miles of range is less hassle than planning routes to pass a cheap source of diesel, and certainly less time consuming.
Fuel costs for me are 5p per mile, range seems very temperature dependent but is never less than 200 miles, and 300 is possible on a warm day if you want to put the effort in to achieve it.
I have only had to charge it away from home 3 times, which involved stopping after 3 hours at a well known fast food outlet for 20 minutes for a B*gM*c and a sh*t, which was enough time to put 100 miles into the battery, even taking the coffee "to go". This is not any different to the thousands of times I have made such journeys in a diesel or petrol vehicle, so the main drawback was the price of the fast charger, which was comparable to fossil fuels, and the impact on my food choices.
So, for me, fully electric is the best choice. I imagine that there will be challenges. I'm interested to see how the car ages, how the battery deteriorates and what kind of things break on what is, despite its surprisingly good levels of equipment and comfort, a budget vehicle. The inherent lack of complexity in an electric drive chain bodes well for this but I can't make any judgements yet.
So, for me, I can't see myself going back to ICE vehicles, and this is without even taking into consideration the environmental benefits, which are real, but certainly more complex and nuanced than the advertising blurb would have you believe. I did try and get odds on the location and date of the first Lithium War, but William Hill weren't able to offer me anything, yet

[MrOneWorld]

I know a lot of PHEV owners that regret their decision not to buy an EV instead. It turned out, they use their car as an EV. They get warnings about their gas is getting old. The drawback of PHEVs is, you have to charge them almost each night while you can charge your EV once a week. That also results in far lower battery cycles which is important for a long battery health.

[ThreeSpeedBikes]

I agree with you. Electricity prices where I live have gone up 40-50% in the past 12 months, and this has bitten into the savings of electric car owners to some degree. Gas may not be cheap either, but hybrids offer a flexibility that the electrics don't have yet. They also offer something of a compromise to people who are willing to try an electric car but still want the security of knowing they have a gas engine to fall back on.

[bikeaddictbp]

My daily driver is a Chevrolet Bolt. I analysed my driving patterns for a few months before buying it, and established that I would only need to use public fast-charging perhaps once or twice a month, and reality has found it to be even less than that. There's another difference between hybrid (plug-in or otherwise) and straight electric ... the straight electric needs no regular maintenance! Mine has done just shy of 30, 000 km, and the only "maintenance" has been swapping between summer and winter tires. No oil changes, no filters, no timing belts, no sparkplugs.