Ok, lets have some fun.
Nissan claim the leaf can do 150 miles, but that's in ideal conditions! It'll never do that!
Probably quite true that the manufacturers are overestimating the range of the vehicles. But then again, Nissan also claim that the Pular 1.5 diesel gets 78mpg. Real world reports are bringing it in at
55mpg. Car manufacturers have historically overestimated the range a car can do, no matter what the fuel source. This is not limited to electric cars.
Electric cars just have no range at all
Tesla (and we're going to be talking about them a lot in this post) haver a graph showing the range of the Model S. The one represented is the 85kWh version. I drive around 80 miles a day, of which around 70 is on a dual carriageway. I consider myself a fairly heavy user, but the urban part of my journey takes my average speed over a typical daily journey down to 44mph. Using that graph, my average journey data would get me a range of 350 miles. You could maybe knock that down to 320-330 for less than ideal conditions. Note that Telsa is very open about the conditions it was tested in too.
There's no place to charge them!
Well you can charge them at your house, which is something that you cannot do at your home with a petrol car unless you have your own oil refinery. If you own one of them, then a private jet is probably your mode of transport.
But ok, not everyone can charge at their own home, and destination charging is important. In 2011, there was approximately 1500 chargers in the UK. In 2016, there was
12,000. That's a growth of over 10,000 in 5 years. There are
8000 petrol stations in the UK, which means there are 1.5 times the number of charging areas than petrol stations.
Unfortunately what there is not data for is the number of filling nozzles in the UK, which would be more relevant. Obviously there is significantly more of those. However it does give you a good representation of how many electric charging stations there are. Every time you see a petrol station, there is 1.5 chargers for that station. Ok, maybe better to thing of 2 petrol stations = 3 electric chargers, so we're not picturing half chargers.
That means there is currently plenty of places to charge them, you just don't know where they are because you don't need them. The number of these chargers is growing rapidly and shows no sign of slow down.
These cars are expensive! £100k for a Tesla is insane!
They are expensive. Too expensive. Nobody thinks everyone should or could move to an electric car tomorrow. However they've went from insanely expensive, down to £30k Volvos and $35k Tesla Model 3s in just a handful of years. With that rate of progression, you'll be able to afford one in a few years. When automobiles first came onto the scene, they were far too expensive for normal people to afford. But same could be said for TVs, computers, mobile phones....and houses. Now look at us. The Model Y is set to lower prices further.
UK Streets are too crowded. You can't just pull charging leads out your house!
No you can't. But what if lamp posts had chargers in them? They already have electricity. That's what LA and SF are doing, and it's working. You just need to think of how to improve the rest of the world.
They get free road tax. How will the government pay for roads?
So do a lot of small diesel and petrol cars. Road taxes haven't paid for roads for decades, so they'll get paid for the same way they currently do. Road taxes are about encouraging consumers and manufacturers to take certain routes with new products. Once electric cars form the bulk of vehicles on the road, the taxes will be changed to reflect that. Perhaps based on vehicle cost, perhaps a flat rate. Who knows? But tax bands change constantly - the same arguments were made when 'clean' diesels were popular, and now look how it's changed.
What if you break down with a flat battery!
Then you call the AA. The wonderful thing is that with a flat battery, you just plug it in and it's back to health. What if you break down with no fuel? You call the AA...and put fuel in it. That's not a break down, that's just running out of energy, and the solution is the same both times.
You can't carry spare charge!
They have a buffer built into the estimated millage, but you're right, you can't carry a pack of duracells in the boot to charge it if you run out. But how many people REALLY carry a jerry can of petrol...just in case? Really?
Governments are just trying to be "green" to get votes!"
Governments are always trying to get votes. But how DARE governments try to protect the health of residents. We should return to the Industrial Revolution where there was no such air quality issues.
Batteries lose charge too easily. It'll reduce in range massively
Tesla Model S and X owners are currently finding that the initial drop off from a new battery, the degredation levels out. On average,
Teslas lose 5-10% of their potential maximum charge after 200k miles. So your 360 mile battery will be down to around 330 miles. This means your battery will outlast the miles put on the majority of petrol driven cars, with the odd exception of a few VW TDIs, since they'll be here after the sun has consumed the Earth.
When a battery fails, you'll have to scrap the whole car!
Probably not, as batteries can be swapped. But when your timing chain fails, you'll be binning the engine in your car too. And it's a comparable price to swapping a battery for an engine. Better not buy any petrol cars! They might fail!
The charging time is too long
It wasn't long ago that the charge time was basically overnight. You had to charge the car for the best part of 12 hours for any decent return. Again, the Tesla Model S can do a 50% charge (so 160sh miles) in 20 minutes. 40 minutes to 80%, 75 minutes to 100%. Whilst this is a very expensive car...see above. This tech is coming, and it'll be here soon.
Electric cars are slow! Silly milk floats
LOL. Google Tesla drag race. True fact: You can speed up a supercar by towing it behind a Tesla SUV.
Electric cars are using electricity which is bad for the environment
On the assumption that an electric car is charged using electricity generated from 100% oil and gas power plants, you still get a significant boost in efficiency. A petrol engine tends to be between 20-30% efficient, with the rest lost to heat and sound. Toyota were very proud of a unit they managed to get 38% from. Diesel engines tend to run around 40%.
A natural gas generator runs at 60% efficiency. So even just from the generators themselves, you've increased efficiency by 20%. And then you take into account refining of fuel, energy for supporting the infrastructure, transportation of the fuel, etc.
Then take into account that not all energy sources are hydrocarbon, and it becomes a bigger saving.
Electric cars put a strain on the grid
Refining a gallon of petrol takes 6kWh. An electric car will drive 25 miles on that. However the 6kWh doesn't take into account the energy required to refine the diesel for transportation, or the energy for powering the infrastructure. When all is taken into account, if we all moved to electric cars, then the strain on the grid would be loosened by the lack of petrol production.
Renewable enegy is a hoax. It only exists due to government subsidies.
Government subsidies for oil and gas out number renewable energy by 10:1. If you're anti-subsidies then that's fine - but be honest about it. Your petrol is about to get a LOT more expensive if you take those away.
Producing batteries is a lot of CO2. That's bad
And producing current ICE cars isn't?
The Gigafactory will be carbon neutral, and produce as much energy as it uses, taking no strain on the grid.
Ships and lorries use more fuel and are worse for the environment than cars
True. But that isn't a good argument for not using an electric car is it? Should we just not use good things and stop all improvement because another industry is worse? What kind of logic is that? And ships and lorries will be moving to electric soon enough (
Tesla have actually announced a semi truck) for the same reasons cars will. All modes of transport can be electrically powered with enough development. The one exception is rockets, or any vehicle which leaves the earths atmosphere - because there just isn't any way around Newtons third law.
You must own an electric car, why else would you like them?
I drive a 1.4L Ford Fiesta. I don't own an electric car, I just don't want to deny facts, physics and technology progression. An electric car currently would not fit into my life - but I'm not going to make uninformed arguments about them, when they clearly are advantageous and will continue to make leaps and gains.
But I like my petrol engine!
I like mine too. It might only be a 1.4L Ford engine, but changing gear is satisfying. I like it. I'd like it better if it was a 6L V8 in a Bentley, but hey, we can't all afford one. But just because I love my petrol engine, doesn't mean that it's better than electric. Just because you like something, doesn't make it better. But liking something IS a good enough reason to buy it. If you REALLY want a petrol car, then buy a petrol car, and be honest about why you did it. There's no shame in that. If I could afford it, I'd buy an Aston...and I'd admit I want the noise.
So electric cars are perfect?
No, far from it. They do have problems. They are expensive, they aren't made from 100% biodegradable eco crops, grown in fair trade countries. But the problems with electric cars also exist in petrol cars. So lets be fair with this.
Should I blow up my petrol car and buy a Leaf tomorrow?
Probably not. They aren't for everyone. They can be expensive and may not fit your life right now. But that doesn't mean the technology is bad - it means the technology is YOUNG. And that's fine, because all technology is young in its early days. It will mature, it will get there, and within a decade or so, electric cars will be the majority of new cars sold. But SUVs aren't for everyone - I'm not going to go and start a thread and say they're awful just because it doesn't fit my life. I'm not determined to push an agenda against everything that doesn't suit my life, but when it comes to electric cars, people seem very determined to tell you just how bad they are because it doesn't fit them right this very second.
Any more info?
If you've not already made up your mind, and have decided that maybe electric cars aren't going to club baby seals to death and smother your children in their sleep, then have a watch of the Elon Musk TED Talks. You might discover it's just about making a better future by getting good engineers to do good work.
https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_...ing_and_boring
https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_...acex_solarcity
There's also a bit of space talk in there for anyone with a passing interest in space travel. First video there is 2017, whilst the second video is 2013, so there is some inconsistencies as there's a 4 year gap between the videos and a lot of development was done.
I've probably missed a lot in this, but it's a Sunday night and I've just done a couple of WEC race reports, I need a break.
Edit:
So is this Elon Musk guy declaring himself the savior of the world?
“The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question,” Musk says, “But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.”