[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by Alex

Sure, but IC engines are a reasonably efficient way to get energy contained in the gasoline into propulsion. It's not as if there is a currently viable way to use that leftover energy. Wasted is one way to define it. Pouring it over an electric motor won't do much other than clean it.

I'm sorry, but I just can't use the word "efficient" as a positive descriptor for something that's only 25-33% efficient. Maybe as a way to describe the ability to convert gasoline into waste heat, but not for moving stuff around. Call me silly, but that's just the way I am. And I'm not sure of the what the meaning was behind the "pouring it over an electric motor" sentence.

Actually, there is in EVs and IC-powered hybrids a way to recapture energy. It's called regenerative braking, and it works by using the electric motor as a generator. Running as a generator slows the car down, converting the energy of the car's motion into electricity and storing it. That's one of the reasons why hybrid cars often get better mileage in stop and go driving than out on the open highway. In a pure IC car that energy of motion is just turned into hot brake rotors and discarded into the air as waste heat.

Oh, comparing the energy content between batteries and gas tanks is not meaningful because electric drivetrains can be 300% more efficent in converting that stored energy into motion than gasoline drivetrains. That's why the more accurate comparison is to look at the end energy cost to move a given amount of mass a given distance. And, when you factor in maintenance costs that price per mile decreases even further. Even depreciation is better because EVs (and to a lesser extent hybrids) hold their value better than similarly equipped pure chemical fueled cars.

Originally Posted by Alex

Out there? As in available? Is now the old days, or will some point in the future be old days at a period of time sometime prior to the technology that we hope is coming?

Right now, existing and in production lithium chemistry is storing enough energy to give a 4,500lb car almost 300 miles driving range. This isn't something we are hoping will come someday, it's something that's already here.

Originally Posted by Alex

These are good comparisons, wanted to credit you for looking up the details. In that heavyweight high-dollar category it's getting pretty close. The Tesla seems very heavy, but those 3 competitors are quite heavy as well. The traditionally-powered cars have significantly more range, but the Tesla has significantly better acceleration.

I looked up the details (actually, the specific details since I already was aware of the general facts) because it seemed you weren't aware of them and I wanted to make sure I was as accurate as I could be. I chose those cars because you used the word "comparable", which to me means cars similar in size, performance, and features. The Model S compares favorably in all those categories with those other models except in price, and the price penalty is fairly trivial in the context of its buying demographic. If I'd compared the Model S with cars that were "thousands of pounds" lighter, I'd be comparing it to econoboxes and microcars, hardly a meaninfgul comparison. I also think the range issue is being overblown. Being able to drive 400 miles before having to go to a gas station to fill up seems like a good idea, but with an EV you end up at your own "gas" station every night anyway. I guess if you had your own personal gasoline station at home that someone else kept track of would be like having an EV home charging station.

Originally Posted by Alex

Scaled down a bit, it doesn't work out quite as well. The Leaf also weighs about the same as its competitors (3,300 lbs, give or take), but because of that has a range of well under 100 miles. Same with the Fiat 500e, electric spark, or essentially anything that Elon isn't selling to luxury buyers. You can't hide that much weight unless it already is a heavy car, or you choose to provide less of it to keep the weight reasonable. Many of the non-Teslas seem to have landed on a 24 kwh battery, not sure if there are tax, cost, or other parameters that point to that particular size.

Of course Musk is aiming for the high-end market first. New technologies are expensive, so you have to aim for those who are more likely to be early adopters. My dad bought one of the first CD players on the market. It was $800 and came with a printed catalog of all CD titles available. It was like 20 pages long, lol. He bought one of the first VCRs (VHS, not BetaMax) and it was over $1,200 in the 1980's. Those first VHS movies cost $75-100 a pop, too. The first cars in the late 1800's went to wealthy early adopters. If they hadn't, then the technology and market would not have developed to the point where Henry Ford could have done what he did with the Model A and T. It took decades to reach Ford's development, Elon Musk is attempting to do it far quicker. Elon Musk has the stated goal of offering long-range EV technology to middle-range buyers within two years. He has a history of missing his forecasts by a year or two, but that's to be expected considering he's having to break new ground every step of the way. His patent portfolio is extremely impressive, BTW. If the obstacles in his way, both technological and human/ideological, can be overcome then I expect that he will reach his goal and the Model 3 will be very successful.

The Leaf is targeting the under $25K market. That it's able to do so is impressive. Range is increasing as battery technology and pricing become more favorable. I doubt the Leaf would (or could) weigh "thousands of pounds" less if it was an IC car. I don't know much about the Spark or 500e, though have looked at the i3. BTW, have you looked at car weights lately? The Mustang (which created the "ponycar" moniker to represent light-weight sportiness) weighs well over 4,000 lbs. The Camaro? The same. Cars are heavier than they've ever been, driven by modern crash safety requirements for the most part. BTW, did you hear that Tesla broke the machine that was used to test the rollover crush requirements? The Model S is one of the safest cars that has ever existed. There's literally nothing that it's comparable with in that category.

Back to the Leaf, the batteries don't take up a large part of the weight of that car. Doubling or tripling the range by adding batteries would likely add only hundreds of pounds, not thousands (or even a thousand). Target market pricing (in-town commuting) is the likely reason for the battery size in that model, not weight. As battery prices continue falling I expect the Leaf to get significantly increase range in the future.

I don't know if you're an anti-EVer or not, but you make statements that are similar to them like saying that EV cars are "thousands of pounds" heavier than comparable IC cars, a statement that's provably false as I did in my previous reply. I'm not interested in trying to convert you into someone who thinks EV is, right now, today, a viable alternative to IC for many if not most drivers, because honestly I don't think you want to or are able to believe that. Rather, my point in trying to dispel the myths and misinformation about EVs that seems so prevalant is to encourage folks who are curious about the technology to look into it with an open mind and form their own opinions. The anti-EV contingent is working tirelessly to create the opinion in undecided consumers that EV is not viable, not now, and not for the foreseeable future, when the truth is quite the opposite.

EV's aren't significantly heavier than comparable IC models. Often times they're even lighter. EV's have a daily driving range that is perfectly suitable for many if not most drivers. They're currently fairly expensive for the highest-end models such as the Tesla sedans, sure, but I sure don't see the anti-EVers complaining about how expensive the comparable IC makes and models are. $80K for an EV? That's nuts! $80K for a Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, etc? Don't even blink an eye. What does that tell me about the complaints about price? That it's not about the price at all, it's just about it being an EV. That's one way you tell an anti-EVer apart.

You can claim significant battery technology advancements are unlikely to happen in 20-40 years, but to do that you'd have to pretend that the progress we make in the next 40 is only a tiny sliver of a fraction of the progress we've made in the last 20-40 years. Hell, even the last 10 years. It' s like saying that suddenly most all R&D into battery technology will come to a near-stop, an assumption that flies in the face of reality IMHO. The main driver for Li research was portable electronics, and in the last 10 years that has evolved toward transportation. There are real incentives in place now to discover and develop new battery technologies as it is becoming clear that burning fossil fuels to move butts around is non-sustainable in most every aspect.

Originally Posted by Alex

We might want to review the key point of Moore's law. What is interesting in it *is* the speed of advancement with electronic circuit density. It behaves like no other technology advance because of that speed. I'm not sure if it's fair to compare anything to Moore's law, but the pace of battery capacity enhancements wouldn't be anywhere near the pointy end.

When I made the statement "I see no reason why it can't roughly follow Moore's law in concept, but with somewhat slower timeframe" I wasn't saying that advances in battery technology would literally follow Moore's law, what I meant was that it can advance quite quickly now that we're developing the knowledge infrastructure that will allow us to design and build better batteries faster in the future. Discoveries that increase capacity and discharge cycles may be applicable across many chemistries, for instance. Development of more cost-effective manufacturing techniques help new technologies too. Face it, we've spent far less time and effort researching batteries than most every other technology we use. Lead acid batteries were invented by Voltaire in the 1700s, but little drive for advancement was made until automobiles became commonplace in the early to mid-1900s. By the 1970's lead-acid technology had pretty much peaked except for minor incremental improvements in reliabity and capacity. Nickel chemistry was next, but only because of the need to power new portable consumer electronics such as laptops. Lithium was driven initially by the same reasons, power density in consumer electronics, and it's the reason why we have the surge of powerful devices we enjoy today. Can you image a smart phone, laptop, or tablet being powered by nickel batteries? Lead acid batteries? LOL.

Power density is the same exact challenge with transportation batteries.
Lithium chemistries aren't the only solution, they're just the best in mass production out there now. There are numerous promising chemistries being developed in research labs all over the world today. Will all of them pan out? Of course not. Many technologies didn't pan out while lithium did in the 90's. Even lithium didn't pan out when it was first looked at in the70's. Because of lithium, EV technologies are viable for many drivers now, today, despite what the anti-EVers want folks to believe otherwise. Is lithium the end-all and be-all? Not any more than lead plates stacked in glass boxes filled with sulfuric acid were back in 1920. Lithium chemistries are the key to the new generations of EVs whether four wheels or two, and in the next few years we should see much more competitive pricing across the board as production ramps up.

Sorry for the wall of text, I just felt like what I said needed to be said. I think I've said about all I can say on the subject, and hope that someone on the fence about EV will give it an honest look for themselves instead of being swayed by all the misinformation and negative stereotypes being posted across the web today.