Scrutable

FlammableFlower wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 1:22 pm

At the moment, probably only the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-Tron, both of which are well over £100k.

Kia's EV6 has 321bhp in AWD configurations which gives 0-62mph in 5.2s and starts at just under £52k in the UK.

Jump up to the EV6 GT for £62k and you get 577bhp and a 0.62mph time of ~3.5s

So - you don't have to spend over £100k for performance.

I'm told by [1 of 2] that a revision to road noise regs is on the cards due to electric cars.

They're significantly quieter at low speed but a good deal louder at high speed where tyre noise dominates (as they're a lot heavier and use larger tyres). Hundreds of thousands of homes near motorways which are under the current noise limits will be over the limit when electric cars dominate. Won't likely change anything retrospectively but they wouldn't get planning permission to build more without mitigation measures. He predicts a flurry of building to get planned new estates built before the regulations change.

My MX-5 does 0—100 km/h in about 8 seconds (apparently) which is quick enough, the point is that it doesn't look or feel like a boring box even if there are plenty of ICE cars which would be quicker these days. Tesla understood this by starting out with the Roadster, which was Lotus shaped.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 2:07 pm

My MX-5 does 0—100 km/h in about 8 seconds (apparently) which is quick enough, the point is that it doesn't look or feel like a boring box even if there are plenty of ICE cars which would be quicker these days. Tesla understood this by starting out with the Roadster, which was Lotus shaped.

Which was actually a Lotus, but filled with batteries.

Not that many people choose impractical-shaped cars. The bulk of the market is in the sensible boxes with varying degrees of interior luxury and performance.

Tesla quickly moved on from schoolboy visions to worrying about the size of the boot and where the child seats are going to go.

Most electric cars also have a low center of mass, with a "skate" design that puts them battery weight low down in the middle of the car.

This gives them a weight distribution more like a mid-engine sports car than most SUVs and sedans/saloons. So they should be naturally a bit sportier feeling to drive.

However, that's up against more mass than e.g. an MX-5, and the global trend to make taller bodied cars rather than sedans/saloons.

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 1:33 pm

? Teslas, and loads more EVs, are marketed for performance. Acceleration is inevitably superior to fossil fuel burners. Petrolheads should love them.

Not sure whether this is worth targeting, though. Even my box for carting people around in does 0-62 in 7.3 seconds, which is far more than anyone could ever need. Most Teslas seem to be 4 to 7 seconds, with the Tesla Plaid labelled at 2.1 seconds.

I have no interest in owning a sporty or expensive car. But I recognise that you have to give it to Tesla for realising that the way to get EVs on sale in some decent quantity, especially given how expensive they have to be, is to address the market for premium vehicles, and give them some features that can attract someone who pays that kind of money for cars.

It remains an issue how you build EVs that are attractive and suitably priced for the many people who get a car for its functionality and reasonable price. Though with volume occurring in premium car sectors, that can help. It has long been the case that some decent volume in sales of premium models has helped get the price down for cheaper models, in the world before EVs. In that world, it doesn't cost very much more to make a larger car. Maybe that transfers to EVs too.

Batteries have exaggerated the trickle down effect from premium to standard. When the batteries cost $100,000 the only possible car you can build is a premium performance car. When they cost $50,000 you can sell luxury cars. When they cost $20,000 you can sell high-end family cars. I think the batteries in my mid-end family VW ID3 cost around $10,000.

Cars for functionality and reasonable price are still a couple more years away.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 1:57 pm

Won't likely change anything retrospectively but they wouldn't get planning permission to build more without mitigation measures. He predicts a flurry of building to get planned new estates built before the regulations change.

I'm having difficulty squaring this with the position that housebuilders can't build fast enough to make housing targets for lack of available labour.

Housebuilders will either flout the regulations because no-one seems to enforce that much anyway, or lobby to push noise mitigation onto the local highways agencies.

In the unlikely event the problem actually sits with the housebuilder - they'll just bump prices to cover the extra costs.

Also, the relatively low energy density of batteries means that to have the sort of range which people are used to from ICE cars requires the battery and therefore the whole car to be rather big, and ICE manufacturers also figured out they can charge a premium and therefore get much better margins on big heavy overpowered SUVs.

So modern cars are mostly either big and boring or big and stupid.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodi ... 023-01-03/

SEOUL, Jan 3 (Reuters) - South Korea's antitrust regulator said it would impose a 2.85 billion won ($2.2 million) fine on Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) for failing to tell its customers about the shorter driving range of its electric vehicles (EVs) in low temperatures.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said that Tesla had exaggerated the "driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers" on its official local website since August 2019 until recently.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:16 pm

So modern cars are mostly either big and boring or big and stupid.

Hopefully Toyota's MR2 EV will change that.

Just need those exciting lab battery breakthroughs I keep reading about (notably solid state) to actually transition to large scale bulk production. Smaller, lighter and cheaper batteries that are still good for 300 mile range and sub 10 min charge times would be a game changer...

... but then so would be nuclear fusion.

Lol, Toyota. They are still trying to cling to fossil fuels. Their only car is a dud, the BZX4. It has a huge battery with lousy chemistry and so low range. And its wheels fall off.

TopBadger wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:44 pm

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:16 pm

So modern cars are mostly either big and boring or big and stupid.

Hopefully Toyota's MR2 EV will change that.

Just need those exciting lab battery breakthroughs I keep reading about (notably solid state) to actually transition to large scale bulk production. Smaller, lighter and cheaper batteries that are still good for 300 mile range and sub 10 min charge times would be a game changer...

... but then so would be nuclear fusion.

Smaller, lighter and cheaper is happening by degrees. Solid state may happen in the next few years but is unlikely to be cheaper.
The electric Viking (look him up on YouTube) reckons sodium batteries are likely sooner, and they are definitely cheaper.

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 4:00 pm

Lol, Toyota. They are still trying to cling to fossil fuels. Their only car is a dud, the BZX4. It has a huge battery with lousy chemistry and so low range. And its wheels fall off.

OTOH, their plug-in hybrids are putting what are effectively electric vehicles for most uses on the road in large numbers.

Are you sure? There must be trivial numbers of Toyota plug-ins, compared to the millions of Teslas etc.

13m Vs 3m

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:21 pm

13m Vs 3m

It's less than I thought - I'd guess that I see roughly equal numbers here in NE US. But then this is a rich area, where I frequent dog walking areas, and Toyota have proper SUVs in their PHEV line-up, unlike Tesla.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:23 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:21 pm

13m Vs 3m

It's less than I thought - I'd guess that I see roughly equal numbers here in NE US. But then this is a rich area, where I frequent dog walking areas, and Toyota have proper SUVs in their PHEV line-up, unlike Tesla.

I'm often surprised how rare they are round my way. Untill there's a decent charging network, it seems that they are the most sensible option for most people to have, if they can be afforded.

But then I remember where I live and how a lot of people aren't sensible.

They're very popular with private hire drivers

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:50 pm

They're very popular with private hire drivers

As are the original Priuses at least from what I have seen

Grumble wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 4:05 pm

TopBadger wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:44 pm

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:16 pm

So modern cars are mostly either big and boring or big and stupid.

Hopefully Toyota's MR2 EV will change that.

Just need those exciting lab battery breakthroughs I keep reading about (notably solid state) to actually transition to large scale bulk production. Smaller, lighter and cheaper batteries that are still good for 300 mile range and sub 10 min charge times would be a game changer...

... but then so would be nuclear fusion.

Smaller, lighter and cheaper is happening by degrees. Solid state may happen in the next few years but is unlikely to be cheaper.
The electric Viking (look him up on YouTube) reckons sodium batteries are likely sooner, and they are definitely cheaper.

Sodium might make EV's cheaper but only by halving their range for the same mass (given energy density is around half of L-Ion). But we've already seen the market response to low range EV's and it's not great, so it's hard for me to view Sodium as growing the market.

I can see a place for Sodium EV's after ICE 's are banned and people on lower budgets have little choice, but not sure I see any success for them before then.

Sodium batteries could work great for static storage applications. So all those grid attached peaking shaving and stabilisation batteries should get cheaper, as well as your domestic PowerWall equivalents. This would free lithium to be used where having lightweight batteries is much more important. This should make lithium batteries cheaper for those applications than it would otherwise be if there were no sodium batteries.

bjn wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:14 pm

Sodium batteries could work great for static storage applications. So all those grid attached peaking shaving and stabilisation batteries should get cheaper, as well as your domestic PowerWall equivalents. This would free lithium to be used where having lightweight batteries is much more important. This should make lithium batteries cheaper for those applications than it would otherwise be if there were no sodium batteries.

A lot of PowerWall type applications are reusing lithium batteries that aren't quite good enough for cars anymore. Maybe going directly to recycling the lithium from an only moderately degraded lithium battery is helpful to the price, but the details might be important there.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:17 pm

bjn wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:14 pm

Sodium batteries could work great for static storage applications. So all those grid attached peaking shaving and stabilisation batteries should get cheaper, as well as your domestic PowerWall equivalents. This would free lithium to be used where having lightweight batteries is much more important. This should make lithium batteries cheaper for those applications than it would otherwise be if there were no sodium batteries.

A lot of PowerWall type applications are reusing lithium batteries that aren't quite good enough for cars anymore. Maybe going directly to recycling the lithium from an only moderately degraded lithium battery is helpful to the price, but the details might be important there.

Repurposing is always much better than recycling back to raw material to make new things. However, there are only so many batteries able to be repurposed out there, which will act as a hindrance to scaling up static storage. So many static storage batteries are made new.