Electric Or Bust! What Is Your Opinion?

[redriderbob]

The July 8th conference will tell us about Stellantis' electric future, so I am curious to know what you all truly think about the future of electric vehicles.

(No arguing, please be polite and respectful, I really don't want to hear negativity or have to delete any post or lock this post).

 

[Bili]

Can we allow multiple choices?

 

[pumadog]

What shall we answer? It depends on the conditions. The more the ranges grow, the cheaper electrification gets, the higher fuel prices will rise, my preference will turn from ICE to EV solutions.

 

[Bili]

Have you seen price on VAG owned chargers in US? No one would like to have BEV with such price.

Yes, I'm concerned with electric charging price. It's not rosy, far from that.

Then for example for longer battery life the best solution is slow charging overnight at home.
And here we come to my own problem. My family is living in a condominium. We own two parking spots in a garage which is bellow a building I live in. It's 2 levels bellow the ground.
How to install charger, my private charger. How to fill an electric car?
As you know. I'm behind the idea of BEV models in the European A and B segments, not so for bigger cars. But as you can see we have many practical obstacles.

 

[TripleT]

It will be a bust without Infrastructure. We have a facility in California ...... Electricity is a premium, there are rolling black outs. HOW will this state survive even 30% of it Automotive energy converted?

You need on demand power and the move has been to other sources.

There is large motivation for this to work from a OEM perspective as the SKU simplification is immense, but I think this has to be market driven and has to be with infrastructure changes

 

[UN4GTBL]

Assuming that you have the circumstances to allow it, and ignoring any infrastructure/complexity issues...

I think that a PHEV is the best of both worlds. You can run on electricity most of the time for your daily commute, but if you need to go on a road trip, you can use electricity and/or gasoline.

Having said that, looking at the price premiums on some of them *cough*Wrangler 4Xe*cough* I don't know that it makes sense for me.

The Ford system that allows you to use your truck to power your house during power outages is very interesting having said that though.

 

[patfromigh]

The battery only electric panacea is not rational. There is no "one drive fits all" solution. I acknowledge we Americans did have such a situation since the death of the street rail networks and trolley bus fleets in the mid-Twentieth Century. For the most part it has been mandatory driving and that has been done with gasoline cars and light trucks, plus diesel trucks and buses. Many cities went from electric public transit to using two-cycle Detroit Diesel powered transit buses, literally overnight. The results were toxic. Transit networks became more difficult to manage as suburban sprawl swallowed up rural ares. It was all social engineering, there are books on the topic and it is backed with much documentation.

The back to back energy crises in the 1970s introduced energy security to America's thinkers. Unfortunately not everyone in our political class is a thinker. The environmental and energy problems have been treated as separate issues, and then in a piecemeal fashion without a comprehensive plan. Electric vehicles may be more energy efficient in general than gasoline fueled ICE powered ones, but many BEV advocates seem to forget the charging network doesn't end at the plug. Somewhere in the pipeline will be a power source. We still have to depend on fossil fuels for a large part of our electrical generation. Even if energy security is addressed, using strategic materials to create and maintain a national fleet of battery electric vehicles is just insane.

Here in Minnesota it gets very cold in the winter. Many were surprised that the battery electric buses under going tests here did so well. The real surprise was the special fast chargers to recharge the batteries in these coaches were overheating and exploding in subzero weather. In Boston they are replacing a legacy trolleybus route with a hybrid electric bus which will run on electricity in affluent white neighborhoods, and then will be rolling coal charging the batteries in poorer minority areas. Now the latest generation of trolley buses (like those now in service in Dayton, Ohio) do have batteries. These transit vehicles use overhead wires to power the bus, but with battery backup for off wire power. When the bus connects to the wires again the batteries are recharged. The reason many cities abandoned the electric trolley bus was the expense and upkeep the wires. (Five gallons of diesel fuel for a US Dollar also helped with the decision.) Many of today's battery electric bus setups use a network of overhead chargers which cost as much as overhead wires to purchase and maintain, but each bus will need many more batteries to operate.

The document which estimated the changes going into the future for our vehicle fleet electrification seems to be safely behind a paywall. Knowledgeable experts in marketing, engineering and production produced a glimpse at what the future market for motor vehicles would look like. Simple start/stop systems would be a small slice in the market, but would anchor the bottom in fuel savings, next would be mild hybrid systems which would have a larger percentage, full hybrids and plugin hybrids which all would have sizable chunks of the market. At the top of the ladder is the battery electrics again having a small slice of the market.

The solution is conservation. We need to stop the federal interference in local zoning laws which have fueled sprawl and leapfrog development, the separation of commerce and housing, and a lack of walkable neighborhoods. We should also curtail the taxpayer funding of inefficient housing patterns and the highways networks which also are inefficient, all fashioned by poorly planned developments.

 

[cygnus]

PHEV

 

[Rmbaron]

Here's the skinny...As a retiree from DC, I had the experience to test the Fiat 500E a few years ago. Wow, made a believer out of me. But wait,there's more. We live in a gated community and my short trips to the local stores was a perfect application for this Fiat.
Would I own a pure electric for extended use, not for me, but maybe a hybrid later. The ICE still has my vote.

 

[Ryan]

Bring on the BEVs (and the infrastructure to support them).

 

[patfromigh]

We have four plugin spots in our outside parking lot. They are 110 Volt legacy units, originally intended for winter plugins. This is in a 65 unit apartment house. Two of the spots are used by a "handicapped" individual to park his massive SUV well over the line to facilitate his using a walker. There are better spots closer to the building, but he insists parking in those spots. When I was making my purchase decision on an off-lease FIat 500e before the pandemic, I asked the manager and obtained permission to plugin an EV in one of the 110V spots. During the pandemic I learned that my medical provider was rationing healthcare to senior citizens. I now have to drive 30 miles to obtain full medical care in a different county at another health care network. The 100km round trip can be an iffy situation during the winter. Today the rental cars which I would have used for vacations and long trips are no longer cheap or a good backup plan.

I didn't buy the Fiat, despite the giveaway price at the time. Now I can't buy any vehicle. Transit service has slowly returned, but some routes remain out of service. The spot where I would transfer downtown has a bus shelter shattered from gunfire. If Sellantis offers a decent PHEV option, will I be able to afford it?

The infrastructure to support BEVs in North America isn't just charging stations. There has to be robust, reliable and safe public transit service in dense areas with frequent well planned routes. Transit should not be a tool for gentrification. There has to be much more passenger rail service. It has to travel at least near high speed velocities to places people need to go. Battery electric vehicles are poor at long distant travel at highway speeds. The traveling public will need decent alternatives to automobile travel.

I expect the BEV charging network to cater to wealthy suburbanites, leaving everyone else out of the grid. This will translate into a few high voltage chargers in affluent areas while numerous 240V chargers in dense areas are needed to enable apartment dwellers a chance to keep their more affordable city cars powered up. The new Fiat 500e and many plugin hybrids can get by with level 2 charging.

Before I vote with my wallet for a battery electric I will need to see level 2 charging in the parking lot of the health clinic I go to. There also has to be more places to plugin at work, as well as some real EV charging stations for my building.

 

[patfromigh]

Convenience stores generally don't make much money on each gallon of fuel. They probably do make money as the gallons add up. The one which I frequent sells gasoline, diesel, and CNG, so it is a "fuel center" and not a gas station. On the edge of the parking lot is a lone spot having a post with a 110 volt outlet and a sign on top announcing "EV charging station". It seems to be free and I'm sure they allow whoever needs to charge their vehicle the same 24 hour parking limit allowed for large trucks.

What I wonder is, if there is a way for a fuel center such as this one to make money with charging EVs. The convenience store chain which runs the fuel center and its competitors went to a lot of expense to install CNG refueling along the interstate routes from Duluth, MN to Chicago, IL. This was done after the DOE demonstrated such an operation was not only feasible, but practical. Fleets took notice and purchased CNG vehicles, sustaining demand for that fuel.

There are some alternative fuel corridors which the BEV technophiles like to tout, but those are funded by the VW diesel-gate settlement money. It is nothing like the private industry and DOE funded project which resulted in private investment along the natural gas corridors. The strategy of the BEV advocates seems to be using the rule of law to force this technology down everybody's throat. Anyone who questions the universal EV panacea is condemned as a climate denier. What I hear the Chicken Littles saying is anything other than battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell electric is killing the planet. By the way, they won't support funding for hydrogen fuel networks, it all must go to battery electrics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's cool to be rolling coal like some tractor pull wannabe. Our country needs a common sense energy and environmental policy. We shouldn't be locked in to some technology which forces us to choose between strategic resources and transportation needs, whether it is petroleum or rare earth metals.

Right now battery electric vehicles and a chunk of their charging network are subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Once everyone is forced to buy an EV, will it still be subsidized? I doubt it. We'll run out of money before we run out of petroleum.

 

[cygnus]

To your point, fuel and gasoline is a very competitive market - that's great for consumers.

I don't know of a single example in business where if the market moves from a very competitive one, to a captive one (single regional electricity provider), and consumers ended up benefitting on a comparative basis.

 

[TripleT]

Truth... there but it is easier to become your own producer. But yes typically only one wire runs in the house.

Local there is actually two providers in my rural neighborhood. But the providers colluded on who is the provider, not the consumers.

 

[TripleT]

We can all agree now that all hydro-carbons are not organic.... Right Right Right.... YES?

OK good. This running out of hydro-carbon talk is wayyyyyyy in the future.

 

[Ramajama]

Well, here’s my opinion first off BEV will have their place in certain applications for the general public. But they are doomed for mass consumption. Without getting philosophical, which we can when talking about the freedom and extension of ourselves that automobiles bring to our lives, the demographic of consumer that buys the most profitable (sorry but profits drive everything) vehicles for car manufacturers live in the parts of the country that are far too big for BEVs to be viable. Aside from the portion that live active lifestyles and need a vehicle with power, range and versatility. MOST importantly for most of this demographic, the ability to drive 300-ish miles, stop, fill up in 5 minutes and do it again, and again…many times with the family and gear in tow. BEVs will never be able to provide this.

So then let’s look at the elephant in the room that is oddly being overlooked. Soon enough, automakers will realize that there is little that they can do to differentiate their BEV from the competitor’s BEV. In its core, it’s a soulless machine. The geewhiz gadgets can only take them so far with a competitive edge and will eventually only be affordable to a smaller piece of the buying demographic. So, then what? They become a low margin commodity. Once automakers realize this, there will be a gigantic sucking noise cause from the puckering of there…nether regions. The backlash will be of epic proportions. Regardless of the feel good vibes of BEV, profits are king.
Not to mention lost tax revenues. This is easy money for the governments. So they’ll need to scramble to find new and inventive ways to get those taxes back. One thing is certain, those new and inventive ways will not be in our favor.

Charging Infrastructure is also an issue. Not much else to say about that. It’s a mess.
On a large scale BEVs are DOA. Book it.

MHEV and PHEV should be a top priority for reasons mentioned above. Period, end of discussion.

Now then, let’s get to the root of the issue. Regardless of where you are on the subject. Electrification is supposedly driven by clean and/or renewable energy to save the planet and protect resources. Batteries are proven to be a sham in that area. The precious resource to make batteries is called “rare Earth” for a very good reason and recycling only takes you so far..and the whole mining, manufacturing and disposal process is proven to be just as dirty to the environment. It’s just not reported as such. Truth, not opinion.

So what’s the answer? Hmmmm, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles had a promising future. It was on the cusp when BEV were inexplicably favored by a past administration and hyped with huge subsidies and other benefits. Hydrogen cells took and seat on the collective shelf.
The benefits are many..mileage is good, cost will decrease, easy for governments to tax, burns clean and most importantly! It provides a chance for the consumer to not have to give up what we’ve been accustomed to for decades. Drive, stop, fill up in 5 minutes for a reasonable price and do it over and over again. It would allow to keep the convenience and versatility we need and get the results expected from an alternative fuel source. I think it will take some competitive factors out of The market as well but it will force innovation in a truly viable option.
We’ll see. In the end the consumer will decide the future of all of this and the cream will rise to the top. I believe We will force the answer, they will not force it on us.

 

[LeeRyder]

Hate to say it, but we've little choice.

But for those of a certain age, will recall when we had similar misgivings about fuel injection a few decades ago (we can't work on our own cars, etc).

Listen, NOTHING will ever be able to replicate the sound of a HEMI at full howl... but maybe they don't need to.

 

[redriderbob]

Hate to say it, but we've little choice.

But for those of a certain age, will recall when we had similar misgivings about fuel injection a few decades ago (we can't work on our own cars, etc).

Listen, NOTHING will ever be able to replicate the sound of a HEMI at full howl... but maybe they don't need to.

Need to listen to George Carlin on how to "save the planet" lol

 

[KrisW]

BEVs are definitely the future - the tipping point was a couple of years ago, and there’s no going back now; Lithium-ion BEVs are probably not the future, though. Battery technologies are evolving, and today’s Li-ion batteries will no doubt be replaced by better chemistries, just like the old zinc-carbon AA batteries were replaced by alkaline chemistries.

Thing is, battery EVs solve many other problems with automobiles- things you, as a driver, never think about: you just pull up to that gas station and fill up, but have you ever considered how much effort and energy is expended to make sure that there’s enough gas at the station, and that it’s not tainted with damaging impurities, and that it still provides the promised performance (gasoline is a volatile chemical compound, and as such its quality degrades over time as the lighter fractions evaporate) . But take a step back further, and look at the refining process: this is a huge juggling act to ensure that the quantities of products produced from crude oil will match demand for those. When the oil companies get it wrong, it can cost you money, by way of higher pricing or (in worst case) fuel shortages. (Sometimes it looks like you’re winning when there’s a glut, but gluts are always followed by periods of much higher pricing - oil companies aren’t charities)

Powering cars with electricity makes that demand calculation easier: unlike gasoline, generators can sell on a surplus to multiple other uses, because a Watt is a Watt, no matter where it’s used. Better still, you can cut out the middleman, make your own electricity and run your car on that.

That’s also why Hydrogen hasn’t taken off. It’s a closed market - you make Hydrogen for vehicles, and hope that you don’t end up with a glut, because there’s really nowhere else to sell it. This is a practical problem not a political one: the US government rules and incentives only specified a target of zero tailpipe emissions; no fuel type or energy-storage type was favored; if you managed to build a Hemi-powered vehicle that turned its all of its exhaust products into solid, safely-disposable pellets, that would count too.
But what really killed H2 was the huge infrastructure costs involved at point of sale, compared to electric charging. Every place with a gas station also has an electrical supply which can be used to recharge batteries; but safe storage of Hydrogen means expensive and disruptive building work.

Using methanol (CH3OH) as a carrier for H2 would fix some of these problems, but using methanol as your primary fuel means you now have carbon dioxide escape either at the tailpipe or the filling station (if reformation is done there.. which would be yet another cost for the site operator) so it’s not zero-emissions ( Methanol reformation is this catalysis: CH3OH + H2O -(cat)-> 3 H2 + CO2 ).

But if BEVs are “soulless machines” then so are Hydrogen Fuel Cells. In a Hydrogen-fuelled ZEV, the fuel-cell acts as a current source for an electromotor, just as a battery acts as a current source for an electromotor in a BEV. There’s no combustion, just a silent, steady chemical reaction where hydrogen gas turns into water.

There is a huge amount manufacturers can do with electric drive technology to change the characteristics of a vehicle: lots more than they could with gasoline, in fact. e-motors are also far simpler than any engine: you could service one yourself – if it ever broke down, which they really don’t do.

The USA and will be last to shift to fully electric vehicles because of the long distances (and in some parts of the country, badly maintained electrical grids), but it'll happen.

 

[Mopar392]

BEVs are definitely the future - the tipping point was a couple of years ago, and there’s no going back now; Lithium-ion BEVs are probably not the future, though. Battery technologies are evolving, and today’s Li-ion batteries will no doubt be replaced by better chemistries, just like the old zinc-carbon AA batteries were replaced by alkaline chemistries.

Thing is, battery EVs solve many other problems with automobiles- things you, as a driver, never think about: you just pull up to that gas station and fill up, but have you ever considered how much effort and energy is expended to make sure that there’s enough gas at the station, and that it’s not tainted with damaging impurities, and that it still provides the promised performance (gasoline is a volatile chemical compound, and as such its quality degrades over time as the lighter fractions evaporate) . But take a step back further, and look at the refining process: this is a huge juggling act to ensure that the quantities of products produced from crude oil will match demand for those. When the oil companies get it wrong, it can cost you money, by way of higher pricing or (in worst case) fuel shortages. (Sometimes it looks like you’re winning when there’s a glut, but gluts are always followed by periods of much higher pricing - oil companies aren’t charities)

...............................................

There is a huge amount manufacturers can do with electric drive technology to change the characteristics of a vehicle: lots more than they could with gasoline, in fact. e-motors are also far simpler than any engine: you could service one yourself – if it ever broke down, which they really don’t do.

The USA and will be last to shift to fully electric vehicles because of the long distances (and in some parts of the country, badly maintained electrical grids), but it'll happen.

I agree with your point about the fuel production. But the same thing can be applied to WATT production.
What you consume of WATT to charge your car is going to be taken from the power grid, and in order for the grid to meet the power consumption demand, it means more power plants need to be constructed. Power plants can either be fossil, steam, solar or wind. Each one of them has its own pros and cons.
Also, the power supplier can manipulate the charge rate per kW.

And no e-motor repair is not as simple as you'd think.