Article: It's becoming increasingly clear Tesla is just another car company -- agree / disagree?

[cvalue13]

I appreciate your take, but I missed where my instinct is off?

At some point, for some reason, I will have to stop for charging just while running errands or taking clients around town.

Apologies, if you’re someone who drives >200mi/day “just while running errands or taking clients around town” then I was way off! (To be fair, you might have mentioned that!)

Otherwise, unless you forget to plug in while at home overnight, for several nights in a row, the I don’t see why you’ll ever “need stop for charging just while running errands or taking clients around town”

But failing to plug in for several nights in a row is the BEV equivalent of an IVE vehicle running out of gas in the side of the road. It’s more of an own goal than a product problem.

 

[Ogre]

Consider for a moment, most of these companies are burdened with tens or hundreds of billions in debt for equipment and assets which are rapidly becoming worthless.

When you hear about Jeep shuttering an assembly line (just happened recently), that’s $50-100 million worth of resources which have been idled possibly permanently. There is debt associated with that property which is now worth pennies on the dollar because it needs another $100 million or more to make it productive again.

Now multiply this problem by a dozen or more factories for each of these companies. Billions in assets which will be written off in the next 5-10 years. Billions more they need to invest to bring those factories back online as EV factories. They need to do this while their sales are declining and their cost of debt is increasing as debt servicing becomes a larger and larger portion of their expenses.

I’m sure governments will be eager to help these guys out, but it’s not going to be a simple $10 billion bailout, these companies are turning into giant cash furnaces.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some survive. But I could also see a future where the auto market is dominated by a whole new set of names. Or the same names but new owners.

PS this is a great argument for Ford spinning off their EV division unburdened by their legacy auto division. They could have an IPO to raise cash to run the business.

 

[SpaceYooper]

Thank for all the criticism of how much I'll drive and when I'll charge and it's good to know that even though I caveated my comments with "it's not a big deal" and it's good to know that when I said "for some reason someday I'll have to charge up in town" will NEVER EVER come to be a reality.

But nobody has answered my question. How far can you get with <5 minutes of charging? If you don't like the answer then isn't it because you think more would be better? Because that's all I'm saying.

Some people comment on this forum about never being able to say anything here that in anyway remotely could be considered a critique of EVs much less Tesla. Your comments are proving them right. Apparently nobody who has a home charger has ever in their life needed a charger in town. Cool.

 

[Ogre]

But nobody has answered my question. How far can you get with <5 minutes of charging? If you don't like the answer then isn't it because you think more would be better? Because that's all I'm saying.

If your car has a low state of charge, you charge at 250 kW and add about 650 miles per hour. So about 55 miles. Cybertruck is likely to be twice as fast but we don’t know yet.

The only time I’ve charged for 5 minutes is when the car was at 0% SOC and I was 10 miles from home and my wife wouldn’t let me push my luck.

Some people comment on this forum about never being able to say anything here that in anyway remotely could be considered a critique of EVs much less Tesla.

Playing the victim when your discussion was all over the place is a bit weak.

First you were road tripping. Then you were charging up on a day trip. Then road tripping again. It all changed up from post to post depending on what reply you got.

You say others were being overly critical, but look at your own weirdly inconsistent and argumentative comments if you want to see why people were a bit rough on you.

 

[SpaceYooper]

If your car has a low state of charge, you charge at 250 kW and add about 650 miles per hour. So about 55 miles. Cybertruck is likely to be twice as fast but we don’t know yet.

The only time I’ve charged for 5 minutes is when the car was at 0% SOC and I was 10 miles from home and my wife wouldn’t let me push my luck.

Thank you. So the ramp time is irrelevant

Playing the victim when your discussion was all over the place is a bit weak.

First you were road tripping. Then you were charging up on a day trip. Then road tripping again. It all changed up from post to post depending on what reply you got.

I was not all over the place. For some reason you made a bad assumption about road tripping even though I specifically said

Especially if it's not a road trip but if I just have to stop to charge up for whatever reason.

I fill up when I'm low on gas. I don't just fill up when I'm on a road trip.

Please show me when I said I was talking about a road trip. Throughout this conversation I've been talking about driving in town and commuting.

 

[cvalue13]

I didn’t intend to be rough.

I maybe just didn’t understand the posts in the first place.

Like I said last, someone with a BEV that ends up accidentally needing to charge while running errands around town seems analogous to someone who accidentally runs out of gas before reaching a station. It’s an own-goal, shouldn’t happen with any modicum of prudence, and if it happens will suck a little bit to remedy. I just didn’t understand that to be a possible interpretation of the topic.

I do think @Ogre got the trade-off in summary:

(A) around town, “filling up” takes about 3 seconds, at the comfort of your own garage (where you were going anyways!) - which is far more convenient than ICE vehicles ‘around-town’ fillups

(B) on road trips, “filling up” materially takes about the same or a good bit longer than the average stop at an interstate gas station - which is a bit more inconvenient

The more a person is (A) > (B), the more BEV’s are convenient to charge relative to ICE. The more a person is (B) > (A), the more a BeV may seem inconvenient to charge.

Or if you drive >200miles a day “in town”’and treat rest stops like surgical strikes - who knows!

 

[Ogre]

I was not all over the place. For some reason you made a bad assumption about road tripping even though I specifically said

It wasn’t an assumption. You said originally:

I get it that most of the time EVs will be charged at home when possible. But 15 or more minutes of waiting is still going to suck when I have to charge on the road.

You said right from go you were road tripping. Then later you changed your story up to back your 12 hour bladder weirdness.

 

[SpaceYooper]

It wasn’t an assumption. You said originally:


You said right from go you were road tripping. Then later you changed your story up to back your 12 hour bladder weirdness.

On the road does not mean road trip. I'm just talking about commuting. And I never changed my story. I never said I have a 12 hr bladder either. You said something about me driving 500 mile's then 500 more without going to the bathroom. You said that, not me. All I ever said is that I fill up the truck in <5 minutes. That 5 minutes gets me 510 miles of range and I don't use gas stations for mid day potty breaks and snacks. You assumed when I said 510 miles that I was on a road trip. I was only stating 5 minutes adds 500 miles of range to my truck. I never said I was using it all in the next 6 hours.

 

[SpaceYooper]

The comments about charging in 3 secs are snarky and so unrealistic I didn't know if I should take it as a joke or not. You have to unplug. How much range did you get in those 3 seconds?

 

[NJturtlePower]

As if this was a shock to most....

https://insideevs.com/news/631818/tesla-still-dominates-us-ev-market/

 

[cvalue13]

The comments about charging in 3 secs are snarky and so unrealistic I didn't know if I should take it as a joke or not. You have to unplug. How much range did you get in those 3 seconds?

Seems the fundamental point getting misunderstood in both directions is this:

charging is not analogous to refueling

Obviously there are analogies to be made, but it’s not so analogous that all comparisons make straight-forward sense.

When I get home at end of day, it takes all of 3 seconds to grab handle and plug in. Next morning, car is pre-programmed on, warmed up, “full tank,” ready to go - just unplug (another 3 seconds/day?) and that’s all. How can analogically compare that to a stop at a refueling station, except in an unhelpfully abstract way?

This recharging takes place at home, where you’re already at - unlike a fuel station needing a side detour. The “refueling” occurs in the background, requiring no presence or monitoring during the process - unlike at a fuel station, where you’re waiting (a min. of 3 minutes for some, apparently!) for the transaction to complete - paying with VC card, pulling back out into traffic, etc., etc., that makes the entire circuit almost undoubtedly an at least 5-8 minute affaire for even the most surgical of strikes.

So the point was, in these ways, “filling the tank” of a BEV occurs every day (or less, if you choose), and takes ~3 seconds (fine, 6!) while already at home, rather than ~3+ minutes at a detour stop every week or two.

All this above convenience blowing up the analogy, long before even getting into other material differences of convenience such as:

• the fact that each BEV “refill” costs pennies on the dollar (esp for those of us with pre-existing solar)

• BEV’s require nearly zero regular maintenance, and so for many folks, every “annoying” occasional 30 minute 1hr recharge at a roadside charge station in your BEV, you’re avoiding an hours long oil change or other such maintenance appointment for your ICE (and don’t forget the added expenses of those ICE services)

• perhaps the most unexpected upside for me in transitioning to a BEV truck: the daily driving experience of a BEV is so shockingly … pleasant … compared to even the nicest ICE vehicles. Now, on the rare occasion I get behind the wheel of my wife’s 2021 Expedition, it feels like I’m in a Model T (noise, vibration, slop-throttle, etc.)

which is all to say that, merely comparing the charge/refill times of the vehicles results in at best a draw for almost all use cases - but if the question is expanded to actual overall convenience factor, for many (most?) drivers the ICE vehicle comes out way behind.

which is why, taking it back to the original thread, manufacturers would rightfully feel it irrelevant and misleading to suggest that buyers should focus on how much mileage is added to a BEV in 5 minutes as some relevant metric for life-fit. That metric is not analogous, incorrectly overlaying an ICE paradigm into a non-ICE vehicle.

Hyperbole intended, it’s like this:

Cowboy 1, riding a sheep, gets passed by Cowboy 2, riding a horse, and Cowboy 1 yells out “yeah, but how long does it take to sheer that thing!?”

 

[SpaceYooper]

@cvalue13 your post is solid, but why is so hard for someone or the EV community to try and make the comparisons? It's as if they just want all ICE drivers to believe EV are the best things ever but then never answer the questions directly posed.

An ICE driver asks a question and EV community comes back with argument about why that question is irrelevant. It's a crap way of convincing someone to convert.

Just be honest and show the ICE driver the stats they will use to determine if an EV is for them or not. I understand educating the masses on how EVs changes the way we drive, plan, etc is important, but we can't dismiss the questions. We have to remember EV companies are trying to convert people from ICE to EV. So when someone says they can fill up their tank in 5 minutes, and get 500 milles out of those minutes, the response can't be dismissive and filled with nonsense/misleading statements like charging in 3 seconds.
Just say you can probably get 50 miles of range in 5 minutes (if that is true) but you'll rarely need to do that because barring some odd circumstances you'll be filling up at your convenience at home however and whenever you want to schedule it.

I still haven't got a good answer here since I do think there is a ramp time involved in charging. Guess I'll have to take the time to look it up myself ? .

 

[Dusty]

How I think about it...

I spend <8 seconds every other day actively performing the task of recharging my car.

I get out, grab the plug and stick it in the car. Eventually, the car recharges while I'm in the house living life, and doing whatever. When I come out the next day I pull the plug and hang it up. That act accumulates to around 30-40 minutes per year spent on charging.

If you take 5 minutes to fill up your ICE vehicle once a week that adds up to 4-5 hours per year not including the time it takes to travel out of your way to a gas station to charge... unless you live at a gas station.

Is that the scenario we're quibbling about?

 

[John K]

Use these bad boys if you have range anxiety. Fill bed

https://www.sparkcharge.io/pages/roadie-portable

 

[cvalue13]

Just say you can probably get 50 miles of range in 5 minutes (if that is true) but you'll rarely need to do that because barring some odd circumstances you'll be filling up at your convenience at home however and whenever you want to schedule it.

I appreciate the frustration, and sorry I can’t do more to help.

I can only clarify by being frank: you’re asking a nonsensical question. You are not asking a question that should tell any reasonable “ICE driver the stats they will use to determine if an EV is for them or not”

That’s not coming from a BEV fanboi. That’s just coming from someone who is 6 months into owning their first BEV.

And it’s not because I’m trying to avoid the awkward answers, it’s just that you’re not asking the questions that implicate any awkward answers (hint: involves cold weather).

But since you insist, I’ll do an inexpert job (I’m not a fanboi afterall) of answering your question RE how much charge a person gets with 5 minutes:

(A) nobody plugs in for 5 minutes, so you’re not going to get experiential responses

(B) theoretically, how much charge (in miles) results from a 5 minute session depends on at least a dozen variables, including:

• the size of the battery in the car being charged
• the max charge rate of the battery in the car being charged
• the amperage/max charge rate of the charger being used
• the relative charge status of the battery being charged (e.g. 5% vs 90%)
• the ambient air temperature / wind chill
• the battery’s temperature/state of conditioning
• etc.

All the above only tell how much electricity is transferred/stored in the battery, and to then determine how many miles that amount of electricity will provide further depends on:

• ambient air temperature (because wind resistance)
• average speed (because wind resistance)
• breaking / acceleration habits
• regenerative breaking efficiency
• elevation changes over distance
• tire selection (and air pressure)
• etc.

but regardless of all that, let me blow your mind:

know how many miles I get per 1 hour of charging: about 2

that’s because for the 6 months I’ve owned the vehicle I’ve only used my L1 charger - the big boy 80A charger still sitting in its box in my garage awaiting installation.

so for me, 5min of charging prob won’t even condition the battery l enough to take even one electron of charge.

I’ve put 3,500 miles on the truck in 6 months, or about 19.5mi/day. My truck takes ~10hrs to charge 20mi using L1 charging. That’s how long it sits there overnight.

I’ve only used roadside charging once, on a ~280 mile (one way) trip to the beach over the summer. Turns out, I didn’t even need to do that - would have made it fine without charging, but it was my first road trip (with kids in the car) so I was conservative in planning.