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Comment on Why Toyota Is Intentionally "Falling Behind" On EVs | Morning Brew (10:10)

ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Personally I think hybrids are the way forward, you don’t really have range anxiety when the generator is built in. I really want to get my hands on one of those Edison motors kits and drop it into a late 60s chevy or mid 90s ford.

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Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m not sold given that you’ve got the mechanical complexity of two types of engine systems in a hybrid.

I think just getting the charging network sorted out would basically make EVs fine for most people.

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- aleph@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hybrid engines have been around for quite some time, though, and they can be just as reliable as ICEs.
  
  On the other hand, the weakness of EVs right now isn’t just the charging infrastructure - it’s the batteries. They’re big, heavy, and very expensive to replace. This is especially true given all the new electric pickups/SUVs coming onto the market in the US. Battery tech needs to mature a while longer, IMO.
  
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  - Oddbin@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    What the hell are you doing that you need to replace the battery enough for it to be classed as a weakness for all EVs??
    
    Look up Lithium Iron phosphate batteries. They will outlive the car they’re in even better than the lithium ion ones that are the majority at the moment. Those lithium ion batteries will also outlive the vehicle they’re in btw. The only ones that won’t are Leaf batteries because either they’re an old chemistry or because nissan cheaper out and didn’t put a coolant loop in them.
    
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    aleph@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s not so much of a problem for brand new modela but there are still many older ones that suffer from battery failure and degradation outside of warranty.
    
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    areyouevenreal@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Look up Lithium Iron phosphate batteries. They will outlive the car they’re in even better than the lithium ion ones that are the majority at the moment. Those lithium ion batteries will also outlive the vehicle they’re in btw. The only ones that won’t are Leaf batteries because either they’re an old chemistry or because nissan cheaper out and didn’t put a coolant loop in them.
    
    Do all cars use LiFePO4? I thought most used Lithium Cobalt Oxide because it has a higher energy density, that’s what’s used in smartphones and laptops. Using LiFePO4 means reducing range and increasing weight. Ditto for Sodium Ion batteries.
    
    All Lithium Cobalt batteries need replacing after about 8 years of regular usage. That’s not great given we still see 20 year old cars in use. I guess there are steps you can take to reduce this, like not charging to 100%, but they all fail sooner or later. All this rapid charging stuff doesn’t exactly help either.
    
    You’re going to have to come up with some serious evidence if you want to say car batteries are not a problem for current gen EVs. Maybe with better Sodium Ion tech they can be extended in lifespan and reduced in cost enough to be practical for most people, but it’s still going to require infrastructure overhaul and won’t be applicable everywhere.
    
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- phoneymouse@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean, it works though. The Prius is one of the most reliable cars on the road. It can go 500,000 miles
  
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  - Snowpix@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    But can it go 500,000 more?
    
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BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It depends on use case. If you’re driving in a city or living in a small country or state, electric makes a lot of sense.

Range anxiety only really kicks in if driving long distances. But 300 miles on a full charge is already common among electric cars. I’m in the UK - that’d easily covet the 200 mile journey from Manchester to London.

I think the real anxiety around range is a lack of chargers either on the journey or at the destination. Without that infrastructure then it will put people off electric cars. But the infrastructure is getting better every day -at least in Europe anyway.

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- jonne@infosec.pub ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, I’ve got a petrol car, and now that I’ve got my own house I don’t think I’d gotten into a situation where an electric car wouldn’t have covered my needs just as well.
  
  Obviously it was different when I was renting and stuck off street parking, but for anyone that has a garage, having an electric car and just plugging it in overnight covers pretty much everything, with maybe the odd public charging on a road trip.
  
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acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
the might be a PART of the way, but there’s absolutely no reason they need to be the only way. For many many use cases BEVs work better than hybrids and those cases are only going to grow in number as the charging infrastructure is built out.

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- phoneymouse@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In what case is a BEV better than hybrid already?
  
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  - jafffacakelemmy@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    well for a start it produces 0 gas emissions at point of use. we still have to sort out tyre fragments and brake dust, and ensure the electricity grid is non-polluting too. but every hybrid car is burning petrol or diesel, just the same as we've been doing for the last 100 years or so. recent research in the uk has shown that plug-in hybrids are often not plugged in because it's too much bother.
    
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    areyouevenreal@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why not hybrid or plain ICE vehicles powered by biofuels? Even things like waste vegetable oil can be turned into viable fuel, and it can actually be less environmentally destructive than getting rid of it in other ways. ICE technology is very mature, and we currently produce more food than we need and waste much of it. Why not put it all to some use?
    
    Pretty much any fat could be used in compression ignition engines with the right treatment, any carbohydrates turned into ethanol for spark ignition engines, and all waste wood burned for electric power and domestic heating.
    
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umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
they definetly can help us transition, yeah. the downsides currently there for full EVs don’t need to be a thing when you have a small ICE attached to the electric motors to help it out when needed.

nothing stopping us from takin an easier step in the right direction.

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MudMan@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think plug-in hybrids are probably the way, particularly outside the US where Tesla hasn't made a bid for controlling the charging network by overinvesting in proprietary charging spots.

At that point it's probably the price that is the issue, but otherwise that seems to be the proposal that people are most comfortable with. The scalability of "EVs as tech toys" upstart approach has always been a bit weird, and without that leading the way as much I don't know that there are incentives to fully transition without an in-between step.

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- partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I think plug-in hybrids are probably the way, particularly outside the US where Tesla hasn’t made a bid for controlling the charging network by overinvesting in proprietary charging spots.
  
  This is the very first time I’ve heard anyone spin the number and ubiquity of Tesla Supercharging network as a bad thing. The charging connector is no longer proprietary. Its an SAE approved charging connector just like SAE J1772 used in nearly all EVs, the SAE Tesla connector is J3400.
  
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  - MudMan@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I didn't say it's a bad thing at all. I said there are territories where they didn't do it, so the charging infrastructure hasn't been built up by a private company effectively losing money in pursuit of cornering a specific market, start-up style. Even in the US the coverage is uneven, and outside the US it's basically nonexistent, so the headstart Tesla created to solve that issue is not the norm.
    
    But... yeah, no, they made a bid for controlling the charging network and standard by losing money on a charging network the market didn't support yet so they could kickstart a segment they were trying to lead. I don't think even Tesla people would deny that.
    
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    partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I didn’t say it’s a bad thing at all.
    
    You said:
    
    particularly outside the US where Tesla hasn’t made a bid for controlling the charging network by overinvesting in proprietary charging spots.
    
    I’m having difficulty seeing your usage of “a bid for controlling the charging network” and “overinvesting in proprietary charging spots” as positive statements and only see negative connotations from your choice of words. Can you clarify how your statement is positive?
    
    But… yeah, no, they made a bid for controlling the charging network and standard by losing money on a charging network the market didn’t support yet so they could kickstart a segment they were trying to lead. I don’t think even Tesla people would deny that.
    
    Thats partially correct but you’ve got some revisionist history there. Tesla came out with NACS/J3400 charging connector because the alternative established industry standard was CHAdeMO. The better than CHAdeMO connector, CCS only came out on paper in 2012. This was after Tesla Model S had actual shipped cars on the road earlier that year.
    
    The ‘make a bid to control the charging network’ is a bit strange. There was no one else building charging networks in 2012, when the first 6 superchargers were built in the USA). I’m pretty sure Tesla would have been delighted if someone else would have done the work to take care of charging, but no one else stepped up. Tesla needed a charging network to sell cars so they built it.
    
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bouldering_barista@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
True hybrids that can get 50+ mpg are better than ICE for sure. But plug-in hybrids are not the way forward. You can travel 20-30 miles on the tiny electric battery then it’s a full on ICE vehicle and mpg usage. Environmental impact on those plug-in hybrids is way worse the more miles you drive, really only a good fit for low mileage drivers that will be consistent with plugging in at home.

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