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At least in the US I can confirm that researchers are optimizing batteries for fewer explosions :chuckle:
 
Living in good ol' Tuscarawas County, there's 2 Tesla charging stations but both are 20+ miles away. The J1772 stations, even closer to 30+ miles away, and from reports, most don't even work.

Technically, there isn't even a charging station in the whole county.

For me I'd put solar on my house and add geothermal heating and cooling before investing in a electric car. I think it puts value into the house while possible take out all or most of my gas and electric expenses. I would probably plan for a Tesla powerwall or similar for when utility companies stop offering net metering. It would also give me a similar solution to the standby generator that I've always wanted.

Also I would make sure I could add enough solar panels to the house for a electric car or two without changing out the inverter, the wiring, and paneling. At least then I would know the power is coming from green renewable sources for the electric car.
 
Fair point that corporate greed may make battery upgrades unnecessarily difficult or impossible. I do think there's good reason to believe that the technology itself will improve dramatically over the next decade or so. There's just an extraordinary amount of research going on, and many candidate materials that have not yet been fully optimized.

Oh there are for sure going to be major advancements, but there is a huge gap between technologically possible and commercially viable. I think the amount of information available, especially from the ev enthusiast crowd, gives people the false impression that these technologies are on the cusp of being built.

I've worked in automotive product development, and it takes the better part of 2 years put items that are already in the market into production. There is so much more work to be done before that just to prove out the components before you would even think about integrating into the vehicle. If there is not a functioning prototype with a reasonable projected price point, I'm not holding my breath that it will ever see production.

We've been 10 years away from cold fusion for 60 years. . .
 
Where are you getting the 10 minute figure? I'm seeing 40 minutes to go from 8% - 90 %



#1 - why would you need to get to 90% charge to travel the 100 miles in your example
#2 - v3 chargers are faster. Video here demonstrates adding 175 miles of range in 17 minutes

 
I'm not saying sensors don't make them safer but if you ever work on a car, the sensors are worse part of modern cars. When they aren't working properly they are giving false data and creating issues in other connected areas. Sensors are also expensive and the diagnosis isn't there to pin point problems even with sensors that have been around for 30+ years. Tracing down a bad O2 sensor isn't as straight forward as you would think it is. You see big bill from dealers because they just replace multiple sensors, valves and related parts so the customer doesn't have to come back multiple times for one faulty sensor.

why would an electric car have an O2 sensor?
 
I don't think me or @Man Called X are saying electric cars are worse but are countering the point that @KI4MVP keeps saying that Telsas and electric cars are going to be so trouble free. I think the reality of car ownership is more complex than alot of people are willing to admit. The financial situations of owners and how people decide to move on from a car isn't simply if the car is running or not. Little things can add up to someone deciding to scrap a car that runs perfectly fine. I don't think electric cars cure these little problems like the door doesn't work right or the window are stuck or the interior is beat up.

Certain people crave the lastest technology. Everyone loves an upgrade if it's a bigger screen or different interior. There is a hierarchy to a life of a car and the owners of it. I just don't think that changes much with an electric car vs a gas car.

No, my point is there are a ton of problems gas cars can have that simply can't happen on electric cars. Both cars are going to have sensors (if you want them to be safe). The gas car will have more sensors because you have to have sensors for things that don't exist in electric cars.
 
#1 - why would you need to get to 90% charge to travel the 100 miles in your example
#2 - v3 chargers are faster. Video here demonstrates adding 175 miles of range in 17 minutes

1. Why would you need to fill your gas tank up to 100 %?
2. 17 minutes is what percentage of the battery? That's still roughly 240 % slower than filling up a full tank of gas. As far as I can tell, those v3 super charges are only in vegas. That doesn't do me any good if I don't live in Vegas or even drive a car to Vegas when I do go.

Also, proprietary stations is not consumer friendly. How inconvenient would it be if I could only fill up my Toyota at Toyota gas stations?
 
Oh there are for sure going to be major advancements, but there is a huge gap between technologically possible and commercially viable. I think the amount of information available, especially from the ev enthusiast crowd, gives people the false impression that these technologies are on the cusp of being built.

I've worked in automotive product development, and it takes the better part of 2 years put items that are already in the market into production. There is so much more work to be done before that just to prove out the components before you would even think about integrating into the vehicle. If there is not a functioning prototype with a reasonable projected price point, I'm not holding my breath that it will ever see production.

We've been 10 years away from cold fusion for 60 years. . .

We already are building commercially viable electric cars, though. I'd argue that the electric battery industry is more analogous to the famously-predictable computer processor industry than to the cold fusion "industry." I don't mean to downplay the existence of many time consuming steps from fundamental research to commercial production, which is why I'm picking ~10 years as a rough time horizon for significant (factor of 2) improvements. I think that's realistic.

For what it's worth, the research group I'm in has a DOE grant to study fuel cells. While it's not my research, I'm at least vaguely aware of what's going on in the field and not talking out of my ass on this topic.
 
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1. Why would you need to fill your gas tank up to 100 %?
2. 17 minutes is what percentage of the battery? That's still roughly 240 % slower than filling up a full tank of gas. As far as I can tell, those v3 super charges are only in vegas. That doesn't do me any good if I don't live in Vegas or even drive a car to Vegas when I do go.

Also, proprietary stations is not consumer friendly. How inconvenient would it be if I could only fill up my Toyota at Toyota gas stations?

You fill a gas tank because you can’t gas your car up at home so you fill it. You can charge your car at home so you just have to charge it enough to get home. Most of the time that means never stopping to charge it.
 
You fill a gas tank because you can’t gas your car up at home so you fill it. You can charge your car at home so you just have to charge it enough to get home. Most of the time that means never stopping to charge it.
You can fill up your car at home with gas if you have gas cans.
 
You can fill up your car at home with gas if you have gas cans.

how Is that remotely related to what I said? You still have to make the trip to the gas station to fill the gas cans. Your house already has an electricity supply, it’s possible to drive 200-300 miles every day with an electric car and never have to stop anywhere to charge it.
 
how Is that remotely related to what I said? You still have to make the trip to the gas station to fill the gas cans. Your house already has an electricity supply,
You said you can't fill it up at home, and that isn't true.
 
And pretty much nobody does that aside from having 1 gallon of gas at home for the lawnmower.
It's because gas stations are available everywhere, not proprietary and you can fill up a full tank in less than 5 minutes. You can still fill up your tank at home though.
 
why would an electric car have an O2 sensor?

They wouldn't but my point is that after 35+ years of being used in the automotive industry they can't even give a definite diagnosis with a code that a O2 sensor is broken. If you ever seen codes from a car they are in group sets of possible problems.
 
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