Electric car cost warning

[Draigflag]

I think plug ins will retain slightly more value as they appeal to a wider market and are more versatile in general. As the popular plug in hybrids haven't been out that long now, it's hard to tell if they are taking a hit or not, but again, they still use big expensive batteries of which the range keeps increasing and the cost keeps falling, so it could be a similar story. It's like when you buy a new phone and 2 years later a bigger better one comes along and yours is worth £20 trade in haha.

Actually I just checked the UK's best selling plug in, the Mitsubishi Outlander. 1 year old with 8,000 miles for just £15,990, that's a sickening 50% loss in a year! (or £1.87 per mile) Oh jeez, this is quite scary...

[gregsfc]

Looking at the whole e-everything conglomerate of products, it is very frustrating to me to watch how the cordless industry refuses to get together and consider themselves as an industry or group and compete against ICE technologies. And I'm referring to every group of product, from cordless trimmers and hedge clippers, to 50-something passenger buses.

Imagine if you will if after the first 20 years of development, ICE product manufacturers continued to compete with each other on the matter of how fuel would be dispensed in to fuel tanks requiring that certain vehicles or tools have a particular dispenser that is quite expensive and rare and may become discontinued in just a few years in favor of a new fuel-dispensing device, even from the same manufacturer, so that, even if I've got a good base product that is reliable, I may not be able to charge a good battery if my charger goes bad ( my current weed eater), or I may not be able to replace my battery, because even my manufactured product brand may not have a replacement battery.

I've got a Dewalt cordless drill; came with a charger and two 1.5 amp/hr batteries. B&D ( which is the parent company of Dewalt) makes some good weedeaters. I thought I'd choose one of those and have a couple of chargers and three interchangeable batteries, but not even B&D makes their own two brands compatible. Moreover, everything cordless gets a smaller fuel tank over time. Think about how are cell phones start needing recharge more and more often, but small devices are okay in this regard, because new batteries and even some devices are pretty cheap to replace. But if I were to lose my mind and buy an e-car, how long could I use it for a round trip, 58-mile Hwy commute before I must replace the fuel tank, which turns out to be the most expensive part of the car.

To me, battery technology is only part of the problem for full consumer acceptance. These companies have got to get together and standardize alot of things to make them viable and competitive, and as much as I love electric motors over ICEs for most applications, I cannot commit to anything above a weed eater in price. And as much as I hate loud and fumy and over powered gas weedeaters, I'm almost tempted to suck it up (literally) and go out and get one. At least I can count on fuelling the same way, in the same tank, with a commodity product until the product itself dies.

[R.I.D.E.]

The predictions of battery capacity increasing exponentially have flopped. a sub $20 weed eater and 200 feet of cord bought for 10 bucks at garage sales covers my 18k square foot property nicely. The battery in this computer is dead, no more updates due to obsolete operating system. I'll keep using it until it's trash, thank you.

Nice Makita cordless drill sitting in the garage, batteries shot, not worth a penny, cost many times more than the corded ones I buy for a couple of bucks.

Nissan Leafs have been out for half a decade and their range has increased by how much? The predictions when they first came out was double the range every five years?

[trollbait]

How much value does any new car lose just by being driven off the lot?

The steady improvement in batteries is another factor to consider in the depreciation of plug ins. Tesla will be coming out with a battery upgrade for their Roadster, but that simply isn't a consideration with the other companies. They don't sell the hardware and software to plug and play their new, more efficient transmission into your old ICE car now.

The incentives will come to an end, and Li-ion battery improvements will also slow down. In the US, the plug in market is growing faster than the hybrid one did. The depreciation rate should improve when that happens. It is something to consider when buying new now, and it makes buying used now a deal. A decrease in value doesn't automatically mean the car's reliability and utility has decreased.

Originally Posted by gregsfc

Imagine if you will if after the first 20 years of development, ICE product manufacturers continued to compete with each other on the matter of how fuel would be dispensed in to fuel tanks requiring that certain vehicles or tools have a particular dispenser that is quite expensive and rare and may become discontinued in just a few years in favor of a new fuel-dispensing device, even from the same manufacturer, so that, even if I've got a good base product that is reliable, I may not be able to charge a good battery if my charger goes bad ( my current weed eater), or I may not be able to replace my battery, because even my manufactured product brand may not have a replacement battery.

There are universal standards for the level 1 and 2 chargers and plugs for plug in cars. The standards could be different between different markets(North America, Europe, Japan, etc.), but that's because of different specifications between the power grids.

Transferring electricity into a battery is completely different than simply pouring a liquid into a tank. Statements along the lines of, "I won't consider a BEV until it can go 500 miles and charge in 15 minutes,' might has well be, "I am ignorant."

We got three different fast DC standards because of timing and greed. Tesla developed their Supercharger standard because everything available at the time was too slow for them.

Chademo is the first one, but had high licensing fees in the beginning. Car manufacturers were even charged this fee if they simply wanted to experiment with using the standard. The fees also meant high charger costs.

The American and European manufacturers didn't want to pay those fees, and worked with the SAE to develop the CSS(frankenplug) standard.

I've got a Dewalt cordless drill; came with a charger and two 1.5 amp/hr batteries. B&D ( which is the parent company of Dewalt) makes some good weedeaters. I thought I'd choose one of those and have a couple of chargers and three interchangeable batteries, but not even B&D makes their own two brands compatible.

For such applications, the manufacturers want proprietary batteries and chargers to keep you stuck with their brand. Apple could have used a basic USB, a standard they developed, plug for their iPhone, but didn't. Then replacement chargers and batteries are pricey, so they can make more profit selling an entirely new drill.

If you possess basic soldering skills, you can beat them at this game. The individual battery cells are just of the shelf parts, that are really cheap compared to what a company charges for their entire battery pack. Most of that price is to buy their special plastic case and metal connectors.

Moreover, everything cordless gets a smaller fuel tank over time. Think about how are cell phones start needing recharge more and more often, but small devices are okay in this regard, because new batteries and even some devices are pretty cheap to replace. But if I were to lose my mind and buy an e-car, how long could I use it for a round trip, 58-mile Hwy commute before I must replace the fuel tank, which turns out to be the most expensive part of the car.

Depends on design and use conditions, like any part on the car. For many, the battery capacity will be sufficient for many years. The Leaf is the only note worthy example of faster capacity loss. The first battery chemistry Nissan used didn't hold up well under South Desert heat when the pack has only a fan for cooling.

To me, battery technology is only part of the problem for full consumer acceptance. These companies have got to get together and standardize alot of things to make them viable and competitive, and as much as I love electric motors over ICEs for most applications, I cannot commit to anything above a weed eater in price. And as much as I hate loud and fumy and over powered gas weedeaters, I'm almost tempted to suck it up (literally) and go out and get one. At least I can count on fuelling the same way, in the same tank, with a commodity product until the product itself dies.

What else do they need to standardize? The parts of the ICE and transmission are not standardized across manufacturers.

Perhaps a pack for battery swapping, but the issue on how the handling the different conditions between the traded in and replacement pack need to be addressed first. Tesla's solution was to charge you for a new pack, minus the value of your original one, if you didn't swap your original pack back in. The only other company to try this has gone under.

Originally Posted by R.I.D.E.

The predictions of battery capacity increasing exponentially have flopped.

Nissan Leafs have been out for half a decade and their range has increased by how much? The predictions when they first came out was double the range every five years?

Where did these predictions come from? Did the doubling the Leaf range actually mean that the battery capacity would increase without increasing the pack size?

The next Leaf will have a range over 200 miles, which was around 85 miles when introduced.

The only prediction I am familiar with for batteries was that the costs for Li-ion would be decreasing 7% a year. They have actually improved at a better rate.

[Draigflag]

An electric cars looses up between 80% and 90% of it's value after 3 years, that compared to a petrol/diesel car which looses 40% average, so it's twice as bad, and given that electric cars are usually more expensive initially, then it's actually a lot worse than that.

I think the previous poster is referring to the different types of chargers on each car, they should all be universal, but each manufacture seems to have their own connector, which from what I've read can lead to episodes where the car will not charge at all on certain charging stations, leading to the car being towed.

Another thing that affect depreciation is the battery is only warrantied for 5 years here, even though it will last way longer, most people are still under the illusion that once a warranty expires, you're instantly going to have to fork out on expensive repairs, meaning a 5 year old EV will put a lot of people off just for the uncertainty of battery repairs.

Major breakthroughs in batteries are being made, just the other day I heard of a Silicone type technology, still in early development, but is expected to increase battery capacity by around 50%. Great for the future, but as per my observations, terrible for current owners of EV's and their already bad deprecation.

[Draigflag]

I'd just like to add, although charging cars will one day be just as convenient as filling up with fuel, at the moment it's still pretty impractical for a lot of people. In the UK about 50% of the population or 30,000,000 of us, live in houses 100 years old or older. Cars weren't that popular then, so most of these properties don't have driveways, garages or even parking spaces making charging from home almost impossible for a lot of people.

Although the small range may be enough for most people for the majority of thier journies, owning an electric car requires alot of thinking, everytime you get in the car you will be thinking how much charge do I have, where's my next nearest charge point, are the leads in the car, will I have enough to get here, what if someone is charging at that point, where's the next nearest one etc. That kind of makes it inconvenient, and an extra worry to the working day that people don't want.

Finding convenient time can be an issue, although most people will be charging overnight. Here's a quick comparison for you. It will take me 7 minutes to fill my car. Driving carefully, it will last 800 miles. An electric car takes 8 hours charging to do about 80 miles. A quick bit of maths tells me that an electric car needs roughly 4800 minutes V's my 7 minutes to do the same miles, time wise that 68000% more to get the same result!

I know theres a lot more to consider besides time, but hey its fun to compare.

[Redneckrich]

I also want to point out, some people buy these cars thinking it'll help the environment (I'm far from it). But what they don't know is these battery's for these cars are more acidic and corrosive than even my two batteries in my diesel truck. Also by having to charge the cars for fuel you are spending a lot on electricity and increasing your bill, which now the electric plants have to work harder, so in turn by just manufacturing these batteries and charging them it's worse than my driving my truck 12 hours a day, and plugging my truck in at night.
But that is a good factor to recognize on the MPG, would a gas/electric hybrid or Diesel/electric hybrid get better MPG? So far from what I've seen in magazines, the answer is yes, run the diesel or gas on the highway charging the batteries and then running the batteries in the city, but hopefully I'll see the Diesel/Electric hybrid here soon at the next electrical/construction expo

[Draigflag]

There's lots of conflicting data out there. It's true that the production of an electric car, especially the battery causes more than double the pollution of a regular car, but that starts to average out immediately, especially if the electricity is generated via nuclear, wind, hydro/tidal or other green generation.

Don't forget extracting, refining and transporting diesel/gas is quite a carbon intensive procedure too, and burning it in an engine adds further carbon (and other) emissions to the atmosphere. It's thought an electric car here is about 10% greener than a similar sized car with a normal engine, that's because cars here are already low emission and very efficient. In the US, the benefit of electric cars will be much higher due to the lack of carbon emissions, and the fact that most cars are big, heavy and are inefficient with high emissions in direct comparison.

[Redneckrich]

It doesn't even equal out, the acid they use, harmed the environment worse than when you extract oil from the ground, via fracking. It's a lot more harmful than turning oil into gasoline, which Diesel is just a by product, of the production of gasoline. So it doesn't even out.... Toyotas plant that produces the Prius doesn't even have a green foot

[Draigflag]

I'm not sure where you read that, do you have a link to the article? I 100% agree that electric cars are not as "green" as they make themselves out to be, but there are lots of benefits such as zero tailpipe emissions, which is handy in cities where cars with engines are banned (which will soon be the norm) BUT they are still responsible for a lot of particulate matter from tyres and breaks, which manufactures are now designing vacuum cleaners around the brakes for (yes, it's getting silly)

Next Green car have a cool emissions calculator, using real world data, they estimate the emissions of a car, it's production and the generation of the fuel used, be it fossil or renewable. Electric cars have a big carbon footprint and fuel production in the UK as parts of the UK still use natural gas/coal for energy.

Car emissions calculator UK &#45 compare total CO2 and NOx emissions