Poll: Do you have, or plan to get, an electric car?

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Do you have an electric car or plan to get one?

  • Yes

  • No

  • I plan to

  • Over my dead body

Results are only viewable after voting.
Supposedly the Tesla Cybertruck is now delayed until 2023... Putting them at least half a year behind the Ford Lightning release and probably best case on par with the Chevy Silverado EV release.

All that for a hideously ugly thing out of Blade Runner when most of the people wanting an electric truck (people actually using it for work) probably want something that looks like, well, a truck.

I don't understand, if there are other trucks available, who will actually want that thing?
 
The second they switched on the 20 Tesla containment magnet for the plasma.. that truck would experience a rapid compression event.
 
betarhoalphadelta said:
I don't understand, if there are other trucks available, who will actually want that thing?
Click to expand...
I don’t think it’s particularly attractive either but they have 3 million orders for the thing, representing some 6 years of production. Even if 2/3 of the orders are cancelled (doubtful) it’s sales will still dwarf every other truck. As with their other vehicles, Tesla will sell every one they can make. At a greater profit than any other car manufacturer.
 
passedpawn said:
I have soldered inside a medical device inside a hospital room. Added a nursecall feature to a device. I closed the door so the staff couldn't smell the solder smoke. I have lots of stories like that haha. Don't tell the FDA.
Click to expand...
Hmm, as a former employee of a medical device manufacturer, and having been heavily involved with FDA audits, I can tell you that is a big no-no and a huge risk. :no:
 
doug293cz said:
Ok, I'll admit to over generalizing. Propeller noise depends heavily on the tip speed of the prop. A multi-blade prop, for the same RPM, has a lower tip velocity because it has a smaller diameter (for similar power.) I live under one of the common departure paths used by Q400 turboprops out of Seattle-Tacoma airport. When they are coming my way, what I hear are the props.

Brew on :mug:
Click to expand...
Also the pitch on a variable prop right? If you create a low-enough pressure you get a pop as well as turbulent flow on the blade.
 
PCABrewing said:
Hmm, as a former employee of a medical device manufacturer, and having been heavily involved with FDA audits, I can tell you that is a big no-no and a huge risk. :no:
Click to expand...

Yep. I've been involved in all of it numerous times myself, including 510k submissions and testing. I could tell you much scarier stuff, but wrong place and time for that.
 
Last edited:
Bilsch said:
I don’t think it’s particularly attractive either but they have 3 million orders for the thing, representing some 6 years of production. Even if 2/3 of the orders are cancelled (doubtful) it’s sales will still dwarf every other truck. As with their other vehicles, Tesla will sell every one they can make. At a greater profit than any other car manufacturer.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess you're right. It's hard to go broke underestimating the taste of the general public.
 
The main question for me is true environmental impact of an EV built and used for it's planned lifetime then recycled/disposed of.
You cannot base the determination of better or worse strictly on operational impact. Components need to be mined, processed and manufactured and managed throughout the full life.
Each step of the process has impact in some way; Energy consumed, by-products and waste are all environmental impacts.
Some are the same as current vehicles and some are new and possibly more impactful and create new waste streams to deal with.

I'm not convinced that the full story is told when the proponents and promoters only focus on stating the undeniable benefits of not burning fossil fuels.
I do encourage the development of alternatives though.
 
Dinosaur juice needs to be mined(/drilled), refined, and has some pretty nasty by-products.

Nothing about it can be reused or recycled. It has no capacity to store and recharge. It's burned, and it's gone.
 
day_trippr said:
And not without issues: we had a bug where if you queried the CICS system that ran the hospital with a patient search for "Santos" it would reliably crash the mainframe (eep!)
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Wow! CICS, that's a blast from the past. Their HIS was still on mainframe, how long ago was that?
 
PCABrewing said:
Also the pitch on a variable prop right? If you create a low-enough pressure you get a pop as well as turbulent flow on the blade.
Click to expand...
Yep. And they go flatter pitch, higher RPM on take-off and landing (flat pitch gives more thrust at low speed), which makes them even noisier near the ground.

Brew on :mug:
 
Kent88 said:
Dinosaur juice needs to be mined(/drilled), refined, and has some pretty nasty by-products.

Nothing about it can be reused or recycled. It has no capacity to store and recharge. It's burned, and it's gone.
Click to expand...
And..

I agree, but that doesn't negate my statement. Every thing has an impact. Some we are more aware of and sensitized to.
Some of the newer technologies have impact that may be worse and more costly/impactful.
Again, I support development of new tech, but like Solar & Wind, EV's change the equation of what we consume and the impact of consumption.
That's all I'm saying. Personally I'd prefer fuel-cell tech. But that is yet another set of impacts not the least of which is the energy required to extract Hydrogen in quantity.
Nothing is free.
 
PCABrewing said:
The people who want to be seen in it for sure.
You are probably right about the folks who actually want a work truck.
Click to expand...

LOL... I worry that I wouldn't want to sell that hideous thing to anyone wanting to be seen in it... I wouldn't want them associated with my brand!

It's the automotive equivalent of an Ed Hardy t-shirt 😂
 
Kent88 said:
Dinosaur juice needs to be mined(/drilled), refined, and has some pretty nasty by-products.

Nothing about it can be reused or recycled. It has no capacity to store and recharge. It's burned, and it's gone.
Click to expand...
Except for the toxic fumes and detrimental greenhouse gasses that are released from its combustion.

Holistically there is nothing yet that is zero emission anywhere in the transportation industry. Heck, even walking as a human being involves energy expenditure (at least conversion) of plant/animal derived food and the resulting waste products (CO2, solid and liquid wastes, heat energy released into the environment). EVs are of course zero tailpipe emitters but if the electrical power to charge their batteries is from non-renewable sources the resultant pollution has to be balanced with the alternative fossil fuel alternative.

This is all independent of the energy and resource expenditures used in procuring, processing and manufacturing EVs verses ICs. On balance I believe that EVs are more environmentally friendly, and the polluting byproducts over the lifecycles of both outweigh in favor of electrics. Of course at some point we'll have to deal with the fallout (no intended pun) of either, or both, pathways. But given the 'terrestrial' nature of mining lithium and disposing of heavy metals is more technologically manageable than dealing with atmospheric greenhouse gasses and climate change they bring.
 
Brooothru said:
Of course at some point we'll have to deal with the fallout (no intended pun) of either, or both, pathways.
Click to expand...

It is a closed system, stop using oil, increase consumption of lithium and silver and more rare earth elements than we already use.
Aside from the waste streams, it shifts the demand on resources. Do we have enough to proceed down what we believe is the best path today?
We can't know all the answers, we're just not that smart. But we can acknowledge that there will be trade-offs, and some of them we may not yet foresee.
We definitely need to do some things different in order to survive, but rushing into it blindly would be a mistake.
 
Kent88 said:
Bolts are going through a thing. A problem developed with 9 hundredths of a percent of Bolt batteries, so they've halted production while they replace all the batteries in a recall.
Click to expand...

https://www.axios.com/the-cold-hard...ter-c6e35798-92c5-4ef2-9a67-029a693436dc.html
Hopefully the replacement batteries work better in the cold than the current ones. So, for those keeping score, if you have a Chevy Bolt:
  • Don't charge above 90% capacity.
  • Don't discharge below 25% capacity.
  • Capacity in cold weather is only 66% of normal.
Oof.

1646766631198.png
 
passedpawn said:
https://www.axios.com/the-cold-hard...ter-c6e35798-92c5-4ef2-9a67-029a693436dc.html
Hopefully the replacement batteries work better in the cold than the current ones. So, for those keeping score, if you have a Chevy Bolt:
  • Don't charge above 90% capacity.
  • Don't discharge below 25% capacity.
  • Capacity in cold weather is only 66% of normal.
Oof.

View attachment 762071
Click to expand...

That is absurd. The issue with the Bolt affected nine hundredths of a percent of Bolts sold. GM is being overly cautious and it's giving their EVs bad press.

And GM is replacing the batteries at their own expense, iirc. The only thing that 99% of Bolt owners will be out is the time that it spends in the shop getting a shiny new battery.

As for cold weather performance, I had spoken with a Volt owner before I bought one, and so I factored in the reduced performance during winter from the beginning. I have no major complaints about how my Volt runs in the winter.

When I look into what a Bolt can do, I immediately factor in reduced winter performance, and I still feel like it would handle 99% of what I ask my Volt to do. And for the other one percent, I still have a gas powered jeep that would only have to take on a little bit more.

If someone approached me today and offered me a new Bolt EUV with the new battery in a trade for my Volt, I'd take that trade without hesitation.
 
Kent88 said:
I still say that this feature isn't that big of a deal.

GM plans to test using electric vehicles as a power backup for homes
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised how many of my neighbors have generators. Sustained power outages are fairly rare, but more of a concern down here in hurricane and tornado central. My truck does have AC outlets all over it, but I don't think you can power much from it. Gas truck.

In my mind, you should be able to deal with a day or week without power. Cmon.
 
passedpawn said:
In my mind, you should be able to deal with a day or week without power. Cmon.
Click to expand...

Oh, I agree. But when you're dealing with a disaster that interrupts power for a week, you're probably going to want to drive somewhere at some point for food, water, tools, school, your job, those sorts of things.

You don't want to be in a position where you are forced to drive your backup power away. Well, I don't.

I think it can have a use, perhaps it's lower cost to buy one truck with this feature included than one truck and one generator. But I'd rather have an array of PV panels, maybe a small wind turbine, and some other battery storage.
 
passedpawn said:
Seaplanes have one major advantage: they can land with or without landing gear, assuming there is both water and land present.

I had an engineer tell me an interesting story a few weeks ago. He was asked by a local seaplane owner to design retractable landing gear for his sea plane. Hardware and firmware design. They went up on the maiden voyage and sadly the ONE thing that could foul the test happened: only one of the wheels descended. For a frantic 10 minutes, the experimental pilot and engineer assessed how much fuel they had, tried to find a way to remove the gear altogether, etc. Anyway, the engineer pulled out his laptop, found his code bug (!!!), fixed bug, plugged his laptop into the motor control board, and reprogrammed. They then landed safely. Surreal. I design mostly medical and military stuff, but also some aircraft electronics, and this was just a mind-blowing story. Engineer even took the stick at one point while the pilot tried to disengage the gear with a makeshift tool.
Click to expand...
This seems pretty simple to me; you just land with the wheel on land and the float on the water. How hard can that be-- there must be a beach somewhere nearby you can straddle the water-line! :D
 
Kent88 said:
Oh, I agree. But when you're dealing with a disaster that interrupts power for a week, you're probably going to want to drive somewhere at some point for food, water, tools, school, your job, those sorts of things.

You don't want to be in a position where you are forced to drive your backup power away. Well, I don't.

I think it can have a use, perhaps it's lower cost to buy one truck with this feature included than one truck and one generator. But I'd rather have an array of PV panels, maybe a small wind turbine, and some other battery storage.
Click to expand...
I look at it as more of a "because I can" type of feature at this point and I'm happy to see Ford lean into it at this point. An EV can pump out serious power since it's already required to spin the car's motor, why not add an inverter to use it for "other things"? Sure, the inverter isn't free, but the capabilities are pretty impressive! Back of the napkin math says the cheapest Nissan Leaf you can buy new right now has a battery output around 110kW which is over 450amps at 240v.

If you're buying a $35k car what's another $1k to be able to power your house plus maybe another house for a short period of time?

Once you get to the bigger battery vehicles like the F150 Lightning, Silverado, etc. you're looking at 3+ days of house power. With solar generation that's pretty close to being self-reliant off-grid, and the Lightning is probably cheaper than "equivalent gas F150 + house generator/battery backup"
 
passedpawn said:
Why is the range listed at 260 miles, but the test that this guy did resulted in 188? How do you suppose they come up with that higher range number?
Click to expand...
I imagine speed had something to do with it, since they tested at 70 mph. Aerodynamic drag increases as the square of the speed, so the aerodynamic drag at 70 mph would be 70^2 / 40^2 = 3.06 times as much as at 40 mph. There may be other losses that increase at a more than linear rate with speed, so driving at 70 mph takes more than 7/4 the power required to drive at 40 mph. Not sure just how the EPA mileage test is specified, but I doubt it's at a constant 70 mph.

Brew on :mug:
 
passedpawn said:
Why is the range listed at 260 miles, but the test that this guy did resulted in 188? How do you suppose they come up with that higher range number?
Click to expand...

Also, it's only early spring. Still a bit cold over there.

It's a little surprising to me that it shaved that much off the range, though.
 
That does seem to be the consensus opinion...with which I agree.
No idea what the heck the design team was thinking with those angular accents...
 
Vehicle looks are constantly changing. Back when my wife and I bought our first Jeep, a Patriot, she complained that the Compass looked strange. She pretty much complains about how any vehicle looks if it doesn't look like it was designed before 2005.

I've never understood how people get so caught up in vehicle aesthetics. There are some paint colors I don't care for, a few I would outright refuse, but I can't recall a vehicle from a major manufacturer since 2000 that I've absolutely hated the look of. Dislike, sure. I even found the look of the cybertruck amusing.

I guess I just don't care about the looks that much, unless their air resistance is terrible as a result of gaudy design. There are several other attributes that I care more about.
 
day_trippr said:
That does seem to be the consensus opinion...with which I agree.
No idea what the heck the design team was thinking with those angular accents...
Click to expand...
Yeah, kinda' reminds me of the old 'Walter White mobile' from Breaking Bad: a Pontiac Aztec, or some such thing. Or maybe like the Volkswagen Thing from the early 70s (as well as WW2). Angular, boxy, butt-ugly.
 
Brooothru said:
Yeah, kinda' reminds me of the old 'Walter White mobile' from Breaking Bad: a Pontiac Aztec, or some such thing. Or maybe like the Volkswagen Thing from the early 70s (as well as WW2). Angular, boxy, butt-ugly.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I thought about the Aztec. I considered quipping: "So that's where the Aztec designer went." But this doesn't look (from the pic above) quite as ugly as the Aztec.

Brew on :mug:
 

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