, and supply chains aren’t scaling anywhere near fast enough to put a 300-mile range EV in every driveway in time to slow climate change.
And if they were scaling we would just accelerate climate change even more. New cars don't slow climate change. Repair your old one, or take the bus, or use a bike.
Not a Tesla apologist, but this article kind of contradicts itself.
They argue that Tesla is lying about vehicle range, but then saying that Tesla is guilty of normalizing building vehicles with oversized batteries which customers don't need (because they only drive 40 miles a day) which is putting a strain on the battery supply chain.
Wouldn't Tesla lying about range be them minimizing their impact on the battery supply chain?
And the rest of the article goes on to complain about the battery arms race which I agree with (anybody who can charge at home doesn't need more than 100 mile range for their second vehicle), but that's hardly Tesla's fault. On every thread discussing EVs for the past 10 years, there's always some petrolhead complaining that EVs aren't able to easily complete the 15 hour, 900 mile, road trip they apparently drive every week. The market wanted a replacement for gas cars, Tesla did what they could to meet that demand.
Also, the articles linked about Tesla lying about range mostly discuss how all EVs fall short of EPA range when tested by Car and Driver. That suggests the blame lies with EPA testing, and Car and Driver even has a suggestions on what to change about the EPA's methodology.
But if they wanted to actually meet their claimed range, wouldn’t they need even bigger batteries?
If the point of cheating on range estimates is to trick consumers into accepting smaller batteries with lower range, is that not exactly what the author would like to see happen?
50% of Americans live in detached housing and could fairly easily get a home charging set up. Of those Americans who own more than one vehicle, I would assume that they rarely need to drive both vehicles over a long distance since I’m assuming that most families can fit into one car.
100 miles is more than enough for the average 30-40 mile American commute, but obviously not enough for a road trip.
Sorry for the oversimplification. I’m mostly reacting to many EV detractors who want to replace their 2-3 350 mile range ICE vehicles with what they see as equivalent 350 mile range EVs when the use case (as this article points out) is entirely different.
I personally own a 300 mile range EV, and I rarely use more than 20% of its battery in a day.
@stopthatgirl7 Perhaps it’s time that people accepted that Toyota was right: We want a diversity of electrified vehicles. Hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell cars all have their role to play right now. It should not be a monoculture of BEVs.
No one is stopping any country or company from producing fuel cell cars. If Toyota is right, where are the fuel cell corollas?
I am not knocking fuel cell vehicles, I wish they were viable but after 20 years of R&D they still haven't solved the H2 storage problems, and it is starting to look like it will never be practical for a vehicle the form factor of a car.
Where were BEVs just 15 years ago? These things do not happen all at once. Most arguments against fuel cell cars are outdated and from people stuck in the past.
I’m definitely no battery engineer, so correct me if I’m wrong, but… wouldn’t a 100-mile-range battery pack have a shorter life span than a 200-mile pack under the same usage since its charge/discharge cycles would be deeper in terms of %, and possibly more frequent because of the reduced range?
Yes, this is kind of true. But how you use the battery is also important. If you frequently DC fast charge your pack, it will wear out significantly faster than using Level 1 (120V AC) or Level 2 (240V AC) charging. This is because DCFC pushes the boundaries of how much current the battery can safely take in order to reduce the amount of time it takes to charge the car. It's a balancing act between customer acceptability and limiting battery degradation.