TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Electric Vehicles (Cars, Planes, and Ships)

Go To

A thread to discuss electric vehicles and hybrid technology. No politics, please.

Technology, commercial aspects and marketing are all on-topic.


  • Companies (e.g. Tesla Inc.) are only on-topic when discussing their electric vehicle products and research, not their wider activities. The exception is when those wider activities directly impact (or are impacted by) their other business areas - e.g. if electric vehicle development is cut back due to losses in another part of the business.

  • Technology that's not directly related to electric vehicles (e.g. general battery research) is off-topic unless you're discussing how it might be used for vehicles.

  • If we're talking about individuals here, that should only be because they've said or done something directly relevant to the topic. Specifically, posts about Tesla do not automatically need to mention Elon Musk. And Musk's views, politics and personal life are firmly off-topic unless you can somehow show that they're relevant to electric cars.

    Original post 
I was surprised there wasn't one already, so here's the spot to disscuss electric cars, hybrids, ect. No politicsing this thread please.

Also, posting this late, so sorry for any misspellings I might have left in there.

(Mod edited to replace original post)

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:14:39 PM

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#226: Nov 5th 2019 at 4:25:44 PM

For a racecar, I'm sure that would be done. And also, I'm sure you could make aerodynamic battery packs that swap out.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#227: Nov 5th 2019 at 4:34:27 PM

They would probably find some way to work it into the aero, yes, if the sport actually survived changing over.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#228: Nov 6th 2019 at 6:13:02 AM

I know a lot of people like it, but I find auto racing boring. Perhaps it's the intentional appeal to the beer-swilling blue-collar stereotype that turns me off, but even before I became aware of that, there's a finite amount of enjoyment that can be derived from people turning left for three hours.

To each their own, of course. Adding EVs to the mix would be cool, and might get me to watch a little bit, but probably wouldn't be enough to turn me into a fan.

What I would watch is drag-racing with the upcoming SpaceX trim Tesla Roadster, if only for the inevitable, spectacular crashes. That said, there would have to be software stability control: nobody but a professional stunt driver (or maybe a fighter pilot) could safely handle a car accelerating at 3 g.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 6th 2019 at 9:18:41 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#229: Nov 6th 2019 at 6:52:18 AM

I'm pretty sure F1 has a different stereotype, but the same fact of in general a move to all-electric squarely appealing to not the majority of people who already have an interest in it... [lol]

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#230: Nov 6th 2019 at 8:26:12 AM

On Twitter, Elon Musk promises the unveiling of the Tesla "Cybertruck" on November 21 near the SpaceX rocket factory in Hawthorne, CA.

While we have yet to see this vehicle, Elon has promised that it's going to look insane, futuristic, and "not for everyone". Speculation has run wild about what it could actually look like, and we're going to find out soon.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#231: Nov 6th 2019 at 8:39:28 AM

None of that sounds like a good combination given the type of vehicle.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#232: Nov 6th 2019 at 8:51:49 AM

OMG, the nerdiness continues. The unveil date is inspired by Blade Runner [1]. I'm loving every minute of this.

[up] Look, I'm not the target audience for a pickup truck of any kind. But when I see the gas-guzzling monstrosities on the road and parked near me, I can't help but think that it's a market segment ripe for electrification. Electric motors are more than capable of beating any gas or diesel engine for power and torque, and weight is less of an issue. The biggest challenge is needing larger batteries for a given range, and there's a finite amount of battery production available.

As for the design, Elon has very specifically said that he's not going after conventional mass-market appeal, but that the truck will "speak for itself" in terms of specs. Certainly it will be impossible to miss on the road, making a statement that cannot be ignored.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 6th 2019 at 11:54:13 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#233: Nov 6th 2019 at 9:09:18 AM

Oh, it's not the electric motor part that I'm questioning. It's the 'insane, futuristic, and "not for everyone"' look that I'm questioning. Like, it's the quintessential blue collar vehicle and... it's being combined with some out-there aesthetic? This seems like a case of aiming for a market segment that barely exists.

Intentional or not, it's still a pretty bad combination.

Edited by RainehDaze on Nov 6th 2019 at 5:10:01 PM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#234: Nov 8th 2019 at 1:52:22 AM

Part III of Bloomberg's survey of 5,000 Model 3 owners:

Thousands of Tesla Owners Share Their Close Calls With Autopilot

Opinions on Autopilot and Smart Summon are mixed, but lean more towards positive.

Disgusted, but not surprised
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#235: Nov 8th 2019 at 5:44:42 AM

"Your gunna drive me to drinkin' with that hot-rod a-Tesla..."

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 8th 2019 at 8:46:06 AM

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Jaustin89* Since: Sep, 2014
#236: Nov 8th 2019 at 12:03:10 PM

[up][up]I'd say that accords fairly well with my experience with almost a week using autopilot. It's amazing when it works right; but at the moment there's enough minor issues to bring it down to 'merely' situationally usefull.

My commute has a section of roadwork where they shifted lanes and didn't completely obscure the old markers so for about a third of my commute autosteer is hopelessly confused.

There's also two random ~50 ft. sections of highway where the car thinks the speed limit is 30 rather than 65 and reacts accordingly. I'm starting to remember where they are and just hit the accelerator to override TACC but when I forget it's rather startling; probably ven more so for anyone behind me.

Havn't had a chance to test out summon yet.

My only other gripe is supercharger availability in my area, the only one near my commute is ~5mi in the wrong direction from work and is on a toll road with no surface street access. Fortunately between only using 1/3 of a full charge per day and trickle charging 20% a night at home I can get by using the weekend for recovery.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#237: Nov 11th 2019 at 7:30:10 PM

[up] Have you considered installing a 220V charger at your home? That's what I plan to do. If you have already, then never mind.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#238: Nov 11th 2019 at 7:54:25 PM

Oh yeah, the US voltage is half what we have over here. That's a bit of a bugger.

My concern over such things is more about like... spacing and how the bloody hell you'd reach with a cable without some enterprising bastard deciding to yoink it when you're asleep or something. Lots of on-street parking only.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#239: Nov 11th 2019 at 8:00:05 PM

Superchargers are a necessity whenever one's living situation doesn't allow easy access to home charging. Street parking is one such example. You'd want overnight charging to be in a secure (or semi-secure) location, such as a private parking lot or garage, but not all apartments provide those. Running an extension cord out to the curb is neither practical nor safe, even in the most ideal situation.

Now, the Tesla network includes a lot of "destination" chargers, such as at hotels, where the owner installs a few Level 2 stations so that guests with EVs can charge overnight. I have not heard of significant vandalism in these situations, although they aren't always maintained well. The worst I usually hear about is people blocking the stalls, intentionally or otherwise.

Anti-Tesla vandalism is a real phenomenon, unfortunately. This Clean Technica article discusses a Model X being set on fire in Germany while its owner was out of town. However, as tempting as it is to call it a hate crime, there was an arson spree in that area, so it may have been collateral damage rather than a specific target.

Catching people who vandalize Teslas has become something of a meme of late thanks to Sentry Mode.

There's also the lovely phenomenon of coal rolling, which sometimes gets targeted at drivers of clean vehicles.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 11th 2019 at 11:05:28 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#240: Nov 11th 2019 at 8:04:54 PM

Mmm, which runs into the massive infrastructure investment problem. Hell, the village I grew up in has a population of some 1,800 now, and most of the village doesn't have access to anything that would qualify as secure by that logic. Street parking or drives, which are scarcely much better.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#241: Nov 11th 2019 at 8:08:09 PM

Right now, Tesla is the only auto company investing significantly in a charging network. There are other networks around the globe that are growing at a steady pace, such as Electrify America, but those aren't directly associated with major auto makers. Rather, they are funded by the fines assessed against Volkswagen a few years ago for falsifying emissions testing on its diesel cars.

National and local governments, if they are to get serious about electrification, need to consider addressing this problem. Ideally it would be paid for by taxes on ICE automakers.

Another thing to consider is that, as BEVs become more common and ICVs start to die out, gas stations will go into an irreversible decline. They can't all switch to electric charging for simple economic reasons*, but those that wish to survive may begin replacing gas pumps with electric chargers and offering amenities for EV drivers who need to spend extra time there.

*Gas stations live on the tiny margin they can eke out on fuel, plus convenience store sales. This depends on rapidly cycling cars, and thus customers, through. An EV charging session lasts longer than a fueling session and earns a lot less in gross sales, both per session and per day. The stations won't be able to survive on this, so there must be an external source of funding, a shift in revenue to convenience offerings such as food and entertainment, or both.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 12th 2019 at 12:24:40 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#242: Nov 11th 2019 at 8:18:58 PM

That's because only Tesla has such an incentive to focus on providing electric charging themselves. As for the tax idea... I have no idea why the "what should pay for it?" concept is relevant. It's direct government expenditure, not a balancing exercise. If you need to do for it, pay for the thing rather than artificially constraining the solution to something predicated on how much you can get away with taxing the majority of road users extra (that and in the UK's case there's already a really high fuel duty anyway...)

Problem with petrol stations is lack of space for long-term entertainment (though motorway service stations here tend to have good faculties on site anyway and in towns... well, you're in a town) and more... once they do shut down and are abandoned, nobody wants to claim the land. It's too expensive to do anything with.

Jaustin89* Since: Sep, 2014
#243: Nov 11th 2019 at 9:47:40 PM

[up]x5 Working on it but at least for the next week or so I'm stuck driving 20 miles to the next closest supercharger every few days and sitting there for an hour and a half to get a max charge (not great for the battery but it's better than needing to drive down there more frequently.).

Overall it's worth it; the car's amazing and once I get a 240v line in even the minor issues go away.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#244: Nov 12th 2019 at 3:50:26 AM

An hour and a half? That's a bit much. It's not recommended that you charge a battery above 80-85% on a regular basis, as doing so can significantly reduce its life.

[up][up] Edit: But the politicians live on the "pay-fors", so you might as well offer a sensible option for that.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 12th 2019 at 9:28:11 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#245: Nov 12th 2019 at 7:07:46 AM

Teslarati: The Tesla Model 3 is replacing BMW as the US’ ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’

In part four of the Bloomberg survey that we've been discussing recently, they look at the cars that are traded in or traded up for a Tesla Model 3 in the United States, and the BMW 3 Series is overwhelmingly the most vulnerable by market share, with customers saying that the Tesla "blows it away".

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 12th 2019 at 10:14:00 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#246: Nov 12th 2019 at 7:34:48 AM

[up][up] Your "sensible option" seems to be raising costs on the majority of consumers before the infrastructure is in place. And also, again, ties necessary infrastructure creation to a specific tax so naturally you're just inviting an infinite amount of criticism on how this is over budget before it even actually gets over budget etc. It just seems unnecessary.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#247: Nov 12th 2019 at 7:42:13 AM

I am strongly of the opinion that we need not just incentives for the purchase of sustainable transportation options, but penalties on traditional transportation to make the external costs more transparent. Right now we actively or passively subsidize many parts of the well-to-wheel pipeline, resulting in IC cars being cheaper than they would in a marketplace with all costs priced in.

Heck, Europeans know all about high petroleum taxes. We have it kind of easy here in the U.S. Tax the car, tax the fuel... it all comes down to making it more expensive to own an ICV compared to a BEV. I'm fine with that, and I say this as someone who still drives an ICV. I have already committed to making the switch, though I'm still trying to persuade my wife.

Edited to add: If the legacy automakers don't like being taxed to advance electrification, they could always do it themselves. You know, the option that won't have them all declaring bankruptcy ten years from now.

In contrast to the automakers, I do have some sympathy for gas station owners, but that doesn't mean they have a right to continue their business model past the point of sustainability, any more than one would expect to find government-subsidized horse stables providing service to all the carriage traffic on highways.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 12th 2019 at 12:28:52 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#248: Nov 12th 2019 at 12:11:13 PM

On stage to receive a 2019 Golden Steering Wheel, "one of the most prestigious German automotive awards", for best middle-class car, Elon Musk just announced the start of Gigafactory 4 construction in Germany. The Tesla website posted job openings as well. (Twitter thread, video link inside)

If we assume for the sake of simplicity that each plant (GF1 + Fremont in the US, GF3 in China, GF4 in Europe) can ideally produce 400,000 vehicles per year, this represents the tripling of global capacity over Tesla's current output and up to 1.2 million vehicles in annual production. I guess the trolls who constantly harp on the "unsustainable demand" for these cars will finally get to put up or shut up.

By comparison, Statista.com puts global automobile production in 2018 at 70 million passenger cars and 25 million commercial cars. Toyota held the highest market share at 9.46%. By extrapolation from the article note , Toyota's market share represents 8.8 million cars. 1.2 million is therefore about a 1.3% market share. Tesla would need over two hundred factories to supply the entire global market for light vehicles, so the other manufacturers had better get on board.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 12th 2019 at 3:56:54 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#249: Nov 12th 2019 at 5:26:28 PM

Bloomberg survey last part concerning Market Evolution:

Tesla’s Model 3 Success Hits BMW the Hardest

Other takeaways are that there are people who like Tesla's stuff but think that it hinges too much on Elon Musk (though opinion of him among Tesla's customer base is still overall positive), still aren't keen on paying over $30k for a Model 3, and are getting a bit weary of the frequent updates concerning pricing.

Edited by M84 on Nov 12th 2019 at 9:28:18 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#250: Nov 12th 2019 at 5:37:17 PM

I admit to being concerned that these companies (Tesla, SpaceX, Boring, Neuralink, OpenAI, etc.) all have as their visionary leader a single person. If he is removed from the picture, the risk is that they will revert to safer, more conventional enterprises that seek market approval rather than pushing the envelope. I hope not, but it worries me.

I've seen several people in the investment community state that when Elon tweets, Tesla stock goes up. His personal image is a positive for his businesses, but he can't be everywhere all the time. Over the next decade, my personal opinion is that he needs to focus on training people up to think as much like he does as possible to take greater roles as the day-to-day drivers of the companies and leaving him to focus on the vision and overall strategy.

Speaking of BMW, in the Twitter thread around the GF4 announcement, it was hypothesized that one motive (among many, of course) for putting it in Germany is to have first crack at BMW's engineering talent when the company falls to Tesla.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 12th 2019 at 8:40:47 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Total posts: 5,114
Top