EV are they worth it?

[Avocet]

It just shows your lack of experience. As my car and I get older, I drive less, and less enthusiastically. Consequently, my CO2 emissions are dropping. Since I don't have battery packs to replace, my environmental impact is less than the EV owners. In fact, I have just put back into service my 18 year old lead acid. It limps along fine mid-spring to mid-autumn while supported by a perma-connected solar panel.

It's a funny thing, you know, but I did actually consider putting in a line, something like "...obviously, on a mile-for-mile basis" in my post, and then thought: "no, that's just patronising. Nobody would be dense enough not to realise that"!

Well, how wrong I was! It seems, no matter how hard I try not to underestimate you, I repeatedly fall short...

For the avoidance of any future doubt though, please understand that comparisons of ongoing in-use CO2 emissions also don't include:

Vehicles that have been written-off and scrapped;
Vehicle in museums;
Undiscovered vehicles lying in barns since before the war...

 

[johnny2007]

It just shows your lack of experience. As my car and I get older, I drive less, and less enthusiastically. Consequently, my CO2 emissions are dropping. Since I don't have battery packs to replace, my environmental impact is less than the EV owners. In fact, I have just put back into service my 18 year old lead acid. It limps along fine mid-spring to mid-autumn while supported by a perma-connected solar panel.

Don't bother!
Can't push a mule over the edge.

 

[cdbe]

Personally I can't wait to get an electric car, when they're cost effective and the range/battery degredation issues have been resolved.

I want this under my bonnet:

Not this:

The sheer joy of gliding along for 300 miles non stop then having a 20 minute break and doing it all over again.

Best for most people to leave it to the "early adopters" for the time being till it sorts itself out - the issues like slow charging for not much range and cables trailing across the pavement will be replaced by weekly or fortnightly plugins (average weekly mileage in this country is about 200) while you pick up some bread in Tesco express. Induction charging will be coming for motorways and lorries etc.

What annoys me is the obsession with "legacy vehicles" and the money being wasted on persecuting them with congestion charges - it's not going to make poor people replace their cars prematurely and until the technology/infrastructure is accessable to the masses we need them. We've had euro 6 for 7 years now, won't be much longer till most older cars are life expired anyway.

 

[DiyNutJob]

There goes another one.

 

[Avocet]

Personally I can't wait to get an electric car, when they're cost effective and the range/battery degredation issues have been resolved.

I want this under my bonnet:

View attachment 269591

Not this:
View attachment 269592

The sheer joy of gliding along for 300 miles non stop then having a 20 minute break and doing it all over again.

Best for most people to leave it to the "early adopters" for the time being till it sorts itself out - the issues like slow charging for not much range and cables trailing across the pavement will be replaced by weekly or fortnightly plugins (average weekly mileage in this country is about 200) while you pick up some bread in Tesco express. Induction charging will be coming for motorways and lorries etc.

What annoys me is the obsession with "legacy vehicles" and the money being wasted on persecuting them with congestion charges - it's not going to make poor people replace their cars prematurely and until the technology/infrastructure is accessable to the masses we need them. We've had euro 6 for 7 years now, won't be much longer till most older cars are life expired anyway.

The problem is that there are lots of different versions of "Euro 6" because it spanned the VW scandal and the regs were tightened up considerably and very rapidly over that period. The first "Euro 6" cars weren't very clean at all. It's really only "Euro 6d" vehicles built (not registered) since the end of 2020 that are appreciably cleaner.

 

[IT Minion]

There goes another one.

This is why people can't have nice things.

They ran a red, seem to have forgotten which pedal makes the car go and which one stops and then hit a building at 70mph.

Interesting points: The driver walked away, although admittedly to the hospital. There's no mention of a fire, just for the people that assume that if you breathe on an EV hard it bursts into flame.

https://insideevs.com/news/585424/tesla-high-speed-crash-convention-center/amp/

 

[DiyNutJob]

They ran a red

You have to run a red if you can't stop. Same like nose diving planes, the blame is never placed on failed software.

 

[IT Minion]

You have to run a red if you can't stop. Same like nose diving planes, the blame is never placed on failed software.

Uncontrolled acceleration is rare, but it does happen.

https://www.safetyresearch.net/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-the-big-bowl-of-spaghetti-code/

Betting on human failure over machine is normally a safe bet.

 

[DiyNutJob]

I know a machine failure when I see one. It's identical to the paris crash. Same algorithm, same problem. Looks like a run away code that can't be countermanded. These software can be improved by emulating real physics. Exponential increase in the pedal force is possible in software but not in physics.

 

[IT Minion]

I know a machine failure when I see one. It's identical to the paris crash. Same algorithm, same problem.

Of course you do. The vehicle was in manual control btw.

The Paris one was a car stopped at lights that accelerated and ploughed through people and objects. The US one was car in motion. Not identical.

 

[DiyNutJob]

In both cases the car can't stop. Both cars were running bad software. At a guess, the throttle force variable increased exponentially, while the brake force variable increased linearly. So, the car kept accelerating until crashed.

 

[Avocet]

In both cases the car can't stop. Both cars were running bad software. At a guess, the throttle force variable increased exponentially, while the brake force variable increased linearly. So, the car kept accelerating until crashed.

I love these "armchair accident investigators"!

Just a brief note, it's throttle position that gets monitored as a variable, not throttle "force", but carry on, anyway. I'm sure it will be as illuminating as always!

(It's also not a problem unique to EVs, by the way. An autonomous ICE vehicle could do the same - as could the driver of a non-autonomous ICE vehicle).

 

[DiyNutJob]

I love these "armchair accident investigators"!

It just shows your lack of experience. I did something like the first video a few times: reverse, clutch down brake down to stop, hand brake on, clutch up. Boom, unexpected reverse. But engine stalls and saves the day, as demonstrated by the woman in the video. I would place that as excessive complexity in a reverse and stop scenario. In an EV, it would have accelerated to 70 mph and the woman would have ended up in a lower level of the car park across the road!

 

[IT Minion]

It just shows your lack of experience. I did something like the first video a few times: reverse, clutch down brake down to stop, hand brake on, clutch up. Boom, unexpected reverse. But engine stalls and saves the day, as demonstrated by the woman in the video. I would place that as excessive complexity in a reverse and stop scenario. In an EV, it would have accelerated to 70 mph and the woman would have ended up in a lower level of the car park across the road!

Well, no, since there's no clutch.

 

[DiyNutJob]

Well, no, since there's no clutch.

This certainly explains the crashes. In an ICE car, even if the brakes fail, the diver could still clutch down to terminate the acceleration.