This article is much of what's wrong in discourse. First it calls its opponents silly and stupid ("inane"), then is labels the opposing side of spreading "anti-EV myths", and then it actually examines the arguments and finds that they're actually valid.
The evolution of Ars Technica into what it has become today is much of the reason why I'd much rather read HN.
More often than not, the technical discussions here flies way above my head, but at least (except for the political ones), i do not feel like everything has to be turned into a "Black vs White, Good vs Evil, Smart vs Stupid" destruction of the counter-arguing party's arguments, and I usually learn something valuable along the way.
Many of the arguments are silly and stupid. It's not wrong to call something what it is, especially when those propagating the arguments seem to be so immune to correction. They clearly aren't operating in good faith, but rather, at best, latch onto an argument whose conclusion they like without bothering to check if the argument makes any sense.
After the "advise" to buy luxury car for 100000$ in response to one of the arguments, I stopped understanding if he is clueless or that was satire. Gives "Let them eat cakes"(c) vibes :)
The escape quickly argument is a good one to challenge. You'd be better off with a full tank of gas, and it's the same with EV, charge to 100%. All good, but I can pump my car to 100% in 5 minutes (plus 10 minutes drive to a gas station and back) and I simply can't do it with an EV. Either you're slow charging at home for hours, or driving 10-20 minutes to the DC charger to spend even more minutes charging...
I find the range argument silly - if I start with a full tank and drive my car until the tank is exhausted, I'll be exhausted too and need several hours of rest. In the case of an EV, I'll just plug it in and charge overnight while I rest and recharge myself. I can't remember a single ICE car I have driven that I could safely use up the tank in a single drive - If I could, I'd be the king of Le Mans.
The only issue is the possible surprise long drive, when you need to jump into your car and drive for a long time immediately. It's doable with an ICE and not great with an EV.
> I find the range argument silly - if I start with a full tank and drive my car until the tank is exhausted, I'll be exhausted too and need several hours of rest.
This seems odd to me. Several times a month I drive more miles in a day than I can get out of one tank of fuel and I don't get exhausted from it. Maybe I have good driving stamina though, I don't know.
> 2. If they can't charge at night at home, get a hybrid (WHAT?)
It's entirely possible a BEV doesn't fit someone's lifestyle. This is a well known issue of BEV's - that charging takes longer than filling up a tank at a gas station. In this case, the advice to get a HEV is perfectly fine if you want some of the benefits of a BEV without the inconvenient issue of wall charging.
Also, if the distances you drive are small, it won't make financial sense to get a BEV, which are more expensive than ICE vehicles of the same size.
Not addressed: greater curb weight for the same size chassis means more momentum in crashes which means greater danger for occupants of other cars, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. Also it means greater wear and tear on tires and pavement, which itself is a source of pollution.
At the end of the day, EVs will be better than ICE, but they won't be a magic pill for all the problems caused by having lots and lots of cars.
In a crash with a pedestrian I don't see how having greater momentum would make much difference compared to an ICE car. In both cases the mass of the car is so much more than the mass of the pedestrian that the difference in what they do to the pedestrian should be small.
For example, an ICE Ford F-150 that weighs 4500 pounds hitting a 200 pound pedestrian at 50 mph would nearly instantly accelerate that pedestrian to 47.9 mph.
Replace that ICE F-150 with a 6500 F-150 Lightning and the pedestrian gets nearly instantly accelerated to 48.5 mph.
Similarly, a 3800 pound ICE Ford Mustang would accelerate them to 47.5, whereas a 4800 pound EV Mustang would accelerate them to 48.0.
For a 100 pound pedestrian, it would be 48.9 mph and 49.2 mph for the ICE and EV F-150 respectively. For the ICE and EV Mustang it would be 48.7 mph and 49.0 mph respectively.
Low speed collisions are also similar. At 10 mph the ICE and EV Mustangs accelerate the 100 pound pedestrian to 9.7 mph and 9.8 mph respectively, and the 200 pound pedestrian to
9.5 mph and 9.6 mph respectively.
For the both the ICE and EV F-150 the 100 pound pedestrian accelerates to 9.8 mph (there is a difference, but it doesn't show up at the precision I'm using). For the 200 pound pedestrian it is 9.6 mph for the ICE and 9.7 mph for the EV.
To add to the weight problem, in my country (NL), road tax is calculated based on the weight of the car, not the amount of kilometers driven, although VAT and excise on fuel do compensate for that. That said, road tax is included in fuel costs over in Germany.
That said, the long-term theory of EVs is sound; if they have the right sensors and if they're interconnected with each other, more accidents will become preventable and the net result is a safer environment. But that's the theoretical outcome.
It's not theoretical, and you don't need them to talk to each other to reduce accidents. Nor is the tech you mention necessarily unique to EVs. There's evidence already that the safety features shipping on modern cars, including collision warning, avoidance, cross traffic alerts, etc. are already helping to reduce accidents. Where EVs can help here on safety is encouraging people to drive more slowly (due to efficiency concerns) and also advanced in motor traction control that is not possible on an ICE vehicle. The rest is not unique to EVs.
The YouTuber Not Just Bikes recently put out a video arguing that self driving cars will allow for and encourage policy and urban design that is even worse than current car-centric cities. Maybe too sensationalist, but they are interesting points to consider. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0
It does seem clear to me that the solution to "self driving cars that rely on an interconnected communication network to maximize driving efficiency sometimes run into jaywalkers and bikers" is banning jaywalkers and bikers for many car first people. Probably will lead to even more cultural divide between sun belt and non sun belt dwellers. Even my city of chicago which is easily top 5 best city for non car transportation in the US is very pro car politically. I could easily see the city government going for the ban all non cars from streets route
The greater wear on tires issue is over stated. By far the greatest impact on tire wear is how you drive. My first set of all seasons in my BMW i4 M50 went more than 25k miles.
The cars being heavy issue may get better due to EVs longer term due to it bringing more attention to efficiency and manufacturers prioriting efficiency more. Additionally, some EVs are not notably heavier than ICE cars in their class; eg Tesla Model 3 and Model Y.
Seems like five reasonable arguments about EVs and how to admit that yes, that's an issue but here are some reasons for optimism going forward, and one bad argument that no one makes.
I've seen all these arguments on Facebook, generally with hundreds of political comments. (I withdrew Facebook's right to profile me, so I get completely junk, generic rubbish instead. It's disappointing, but not surprising.)
idk seems like a straw man that pro-EV folks would emphasize b/c it makes the other side sound stupid but i'm not on facebook so idk, the other objections seem reasonable to me tho
This is brought up all the time by anti-EV folks. Usually in the form of "the grid can't handle everyone switching to EVs!" Which is obviously silly because no one is snapping the infinity gauntlet and turning all ICE vehicles into EVs overnight.
I generally see that grid and generation improvements are being made. I think the fear is that the EV usage is outpacing that. I don't know if it's true, and the referenced 6 year old article from Ars which states that there could be issues in the future does not seem to show where we're at today.
idk seems like a straw man that pro-EV folks would emphasize b/c it makes the other side sound stupid but i'm not on facebook so idk, the other objections seem reasonable to me tho
>Yes, if the power fails, the chargers won't work anymore, but neither will any of the gas station gas pumps
When I was young, some gas stations has hand pumps for use of power failures. Is that no longer the case ? I have not heard about hand pumps in decades.
To me, the largest argument is the purchase expense and maintenance. Maintenance is not even mentioned.
In theory maintenance of EVs should be far less than Fossil Fuel vehicles. But time and time again I see articles stating maintenance is far more expensive. This is something I do not understand. I remember seeing articles (maybe ads) ages ago about maintenance of EVs from 100+ years ago, that was the main reason cited to purchase an EV back then, less maintenance and much cleaner.
As for rebates, with the US Election, the idiot that won stated many times he wants to eliminate all incentive for EVs. Not sure if it will really happen, but something people looking into an EV should be aware of.
As someone driving EVs for more than 10 years; maintenance is far less. The articles claiming maintenance is more expensive on EVs are lying. What has happened is there has been a non-scientific survey by Consumer Reports showing people self reporting more problems with EVs. But most of that can be chalked up to going through a period with A) brand new companies like Rivian and Lucid launching their first vehicles and B) EVs from legacy auto companies being brand new models; typically brand new models have more issues than the same model a few years later.
But note that those problems are warranty issues, as in no cost to the owner.
In the hypothetical case that an EV's battery needs to be replaced, yes that will be a very expensive repair / maintenance cost. But that's not common, no more common than an engine rebuild / replacement; one source I found [0] says about 13% of EVs from before 2015 have had / needed a battery replacement, and 30% of cars from 2011. I can't find any reliable figures on car engine replacements, other than that on average, one is needed after 200.000 miles - but if maintained well, car engines can last much longer.
>In the hypothetical case that an EV's battery needs to be replaced, yes that will be a very expensive repair
Interesting, I would have never seen this as an issue. 100+ hears ago, "Gas" stations would just replace battery pack and charge the ones taken out for the next customer. It was a rather easy job using some kind of crane.
I would have thought the new EVs would have easy access to the batteries. I do remember seeing somewhere there was/is a push to make battery replacement standard and easier. And have one standard battery pack across all models.
1) Batteries very rarely need to actually be replaced. It is inevitable that transmissions and ICE engines will need very expensive large services and always need regulae maintenance that adds up over time.
2) ICE engines absolutely do not and will not last longer than batteries and electric motors. ICE engines ans transmissions just have way, way more moving parts and are being put through far more stress. If you want something that will last for half a million miles or more, buy an EV.
A typical driver makes 14500 miles per year. If manufacturing learning rates hold, then by the time that driver runs through 200,000 miles, a new battery pack of the same size will cost less than 25% what it cost new.
What are these ICE vehicles that require so much maintenance? I have three from 10 to 25 years old and the amount of maintenance they require is negligible, at best.
> But time and time again I see articles stating maintenance is far more expensive. This is something I do not understand.
Price gouging.
Understand that manufacturers are earning their money selling spare parts and maintenance. Less maintenance needed? No problem! Increase maintenance cost per item. Even easier to do with "novel" technologies that act as a form of vendor lock-in.
Most of car sales margin for legacy automakers is also car maintenance costs. You have essentially a subscribed customers for years locked in to whatever you charge for parts. A math problem essentially to take a hit on net initial sale
The point I was trying to make was, that with electric cars, manufacturers saw an opportunity to increase the maintenance-related profits, as they are, for the time being, more of a "niche" product, and not something a generic mechanic can repair easily.
That's not an F-U to Musk. Musk had stated a while ago that he was against EV incentives.
Without he incentives EV makers will have to lower prices some to compete against ICEs. For Tesla that means lower profits, but they will still be profitable.
For other companies that are still in the "losing money until they can increase volume to reap economies of scale" stage, which is most of Tesla's non-Chinese competitors, he thinks that losing the incentives will devastate them.
1. EVs are much easier to charge than gas because it is passive. The article gets it right: charging time is irrelevant when you're sleeping.
2. You can, in most cases, charge it at home. There are conditions: you'll need to have an available plug (some condos don't allow it) and you'd better have the car in a heated garage (it doesn't charge well when it's below -15 C / 5 F).
3. It is not expensive if you compare to gas cars in the same quality range and you factor in the long run economies. In North America, EVs are sold as luxury cars and should be compared with other gas luxury cars.
4. Under severe weather EVs are actually safer to drive than gas cars. Because they're more powerful, heavier and their weight is more evenly distributed they tend to be more stable than gas cars.
5. Truck drivers need 600 miles of uninterrupted drive repeatedly. Most normal people that attempt that will put their health/safety at risk if they need it frequently.
6. In the long run, they're better for the environment. Coupled with solar panels at home they're even a lot better.
I think one of the big things we don't appreciate yet is fires.
It's not so much "These things all explode" (they don't) or "wahh I can't put out the oxidized fire, so much flame, so little water, make it stop burning" (a disruption primarily, you just wait for it to burn out), as it is "The electrolyte in lithium ion batteries is actually lithium HEXAFLUOROPHOSPHATE, which burns in a runaway self-oxidized fire to produce hydrogen fluoride and clouds of phosphoric and hydrofluoric acid."
Tunnel fires were already pretty deadly when we were just talking about hydrocarbon combustion, but hydrofluoric acid day at work is something a lot of chemists will call out sick for. Casual momentary contact can kill or maim you.
LFP still uses fluorine chemistry, but at least it's a lot less likely to burn when abused than NMC. It's going to take one poorly ventilated tunnel fire to trigger a legal mandate to use LFP over NMC forms of lithium ion.
"you'd better have the car in a heated garage (it doesn't charge well when it's below -15 C / 5 F)."
This I find interesting. Why doesn't the internal resistance of the battery raise the temperature sufficient that this doesn't matter? If there's some reason it couldn't, then why not add a few temperature-modulated resistive heaters?
And six bad rebuttals. Bad articles like this do more harm than good for the EV cause. Like the "charge at home" question. A proper answer would discuss 120V vs 240V charging, explaining how 120V is enough for most.
> Yes, refueling for that gas car is quick, but it's also inconvenient, particularly if you live somewhere where all the gas stations keep closing down.
But it then links to an article saying gas stations close down because of a refocus to EVs, making it an argument against EVs.
Trash.