Well, what about cooling the batteries. Doesnt that require air to cool?

jmm. maybe an electric van would be practical then. Needs toilet facilities, water storage, etc.

I can understand that. the electric cars arent practical for americans who like to travel large distances basically whenever they want. I cant go from Las Vegas to Phoenix currently, even with a Tesla without being very careful to plan out when I recharge.

AS may not have been written to be a newspaper, but IT IS

I would like to NOT have to be concerned about running out of electricity and having to wait in line and for a long charge time to get moving again. With IC cars, I dont have that issue- the infrastructure is already there and filling up with fuel takes minutes , and before biden, gas was under $2 a gallon. Electric propulsion is ok for gold carts, maybe forklifts, and maybe low power electric bicycles. Not for cars and trucks unless you have a small IC engine/generator to make up for the charging and infrastructure lacking today.

My thoughts exactly. This is another solyndra debacle in the making. When they are practical and consumers want them, they will appear without government handouts and regulations.
The media and government are pounding on us to change over to electric cars. I feel it, and for that reason alone I wont buy one.

Look, with the current situation of working at home, I drive my vehicle so little, that slow charging is an option.
Downside... I also live in FL where my electric bill is one of my larger monthly expenses. Eclipsing my fuel purchases, normally.

And let me mention Batteries do NOT LIKE HEAT...
in FL, I went to sears to buy a 5yr battery (circa 1992) from Sears.
The first thing they did was took 2yrs off the warranty. I SCREAMED a bit.
WTF? The whole purpose of getting a 5yr battery was to get 5yrs of battery life.

He explained: In FL, it gets > 170 degrees under the hood of the car for many hours in the day. You drive to work, and the car sits in the sun. The battery never cools down. The excess heat destroys the battery. We simply cannot honor 5 years in this environment. And sure enough, the battery didn't even make 3yrs, they pro-rated my battery life and applied it to the new battery. What an eye-opener!

Now imagine a vehicle that LIVES on the most expensive replacement battery known to consumers... What is that heat going to do there? Jut erode it faster.

But that's okay, because they get you when you COME BACK more often.

What will happen to MANY of them when they sit in a LOT in a flooded region in TX or LA after a hurricane. Flooded gasoline cars (not driven) can be cleaned and still used. I doubt the flooded battery cars will be worth squat.

My last few cars were 200k + miles. My current has 75k and I feel I have 10yrs to go with it. Imagine trying to get that kind of mileage from one of these vehicles (without replacing the batteries 4 times)

In fact, they aren't practical. Let's give the electric car a best case scenario by starting from the most efficient power plants. These are the combined cycle plants, with the GE HA turbine achieving 63.08% efficiency https://www.ge.com/power/about/insigh... . Now, combine that with the typical power plant bus bar to wall socket efficiency of about 93% https://grid.insideenergy.org/lost-in... and you’re down to 58% efficiency.

We’re not done yet. Owners are reporting that charger and battery are about 80% efficient https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threa... . So, we’re now down to about 46% efficiency.

Finally from battery to wheels is only about 85% efficient (which is why the battery has to be cooled during BOTH discharge and charge), so we end up with about 39% efficiency from power plant to wheels.

Many gasoline engines are already better than this and Mazda’s Skyactive-X https://insidemazda.mazdausa.com/the-... will beat this by a lot.

Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, Not A Newspaper!

The idea that EVs have a bigger challenge than ICE cars in driving through water is a fallacious. Most of the electric motors we make can run underwater without any issue, and we make ones a LOT bigger than car motors. The batteries similarly don't care. However, your ICE air intake REALLY CARES. Just pour a two cups of water in your intake while the engine is running and see what happens.

I just found that. What a joke. Not only is "full hybrid" the worst technobabble, the Prius is a Rube-Goldberg series-parallel mess. The Volt was far superior in every way, but GM couldn't be allowed to have a good vehicle, and it died.

What is you definition of practical then?

Transformers are not going to blow up from load within their rating, and they are protected by breakers. Transformers blow up when the cooling/insulating oil leaks out. Infrastructure surely does need investment, but EVs aren't going to drive this for a while.

"Batteries need to be higher capacity"
EV advocates have been saying that for 100 years. Hasn't happened yet.

Integrated solar panels covering every horizontal surface of the average family car would provide enough power to run a small fan to circulate fresh air in the passenger compartment. It would only be a drop in the bucket for recharging a main propulsion battery.

Does one really seek to use public opinion to justify a technical position? Come on! Look at the COVID response.

>90% of households can readily be supported with an EV. Changing ALL cars to EVs increases grid consumption by <50%. EVs reduce fuel consumption by at least 50% over ICE cars.

EVs work fine. They don't need subsidies (and none should have them). If I bought another car today, I would probably get an EV. They are fast, and low maintenance. I do not have a concern for the minor cost increase. I have aggressive cars anyway.

We should bristle at the forced subsidy, the CO2 nonsciencesence, and value signalling. EVs are not the issue, nor are they useless. Force is the issue.

I think, maybe in 10 years time, I may get an EV, made by Toyota. The batteries need to be higher capacity yet, the vehicles should have integrated solar panels, and more people should have solar panels at home, lessening the burden on the grid. Then we'll see.

Title jogged my memory. A neighbor had an electric car up until about a year ago. After he traded it in for a car with an internal combustion engine, he told me he "wanted something more practical."

The thing, (you know the thing?) we have to finger out, AJ, is of what resource value are they when the grid goes down, the sun goes dark or the computers fry...temporary housing at best?

How many EV's would be manufactured and sold without government subsidies? How many fossil fuel cars are manufactured and sold despite having to support every tax governments dare to charge and every regulation they can imagine to enact? My answer lies in the answers.

Lots of ways to respond to this one:

1. Current infrastructure can't handle more than a few 50 amp EV chargers in a neighborhood at a time. Expect lots of blown transformers.

2. The price of new EVs puts them out of the reach of most people, and no one is looking forward to buying a used one with depleted batteries.

3. The charging station problem, with long recharge times isn't going to be solved anytime soon.

4. The same people pushing for mandated EVs are the ones pushing wind and solar as the only acceptable clean energy solution. Not only are they horrified at fossil fuel energy, but they shrink from nuclear, and don't want to hear about geothermal or hydroelectric energy sources (the DOE estimates that with the use of fracking, geothermal energy could meet 80% of our power needs; there are 6,000 flood control dams the Corps of Engineers think could be outfitted with hydroelectric generators). Of course the fact that China is the primary source of wind and solar power equipment wouldn't have anything to do with that (sarc).

Electric cars will be practical when the US reaches 75% power provided by nuclear plants. I don't think I'll hold my breath on that one.

Thanks for the laugh FFA! I nearly fell out of my chair at "Full Hybrid"!

A few years ago I'd have been surprised that the brainwashing reached 25%. I suspect a large portion are people who are confusing full electric with hybrid. Of course that is what wikipedia and the other liars want. Wikipedia calls the Prius "full hybrid" to brainwash the morons who are susceptible. Contemptible slime.

B.S. Just you wait until folks have to start replacing those stupid batteries. What would happen to one if you had to drive through our flooded streets on the Texas Gulf Coast when we have one of our many storms?