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Honda says making cheap electric vehicles is too hard, ends deal with GM
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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So, like all the others, while China will produce cheap eCars. Look, I don't want to predict the future, but if I only have 20-30k for a new car, I simply physically can't buy a 60k SUV. You can't jump into a saturated market of other car companies, who almost all seam to want only expensive eCars and expect a good outcome. There's only so much money in the pockets of people and only so much people are willing to pay for a used eCar, if it needs expensive battery replacement soon. Not going to happen. Build cheaper cars or fail.
Not to mention not everyone has a garage or nearby charging spot to charge an ev.
Perhaps dealing with infrastructure first would be interesting...
Then again, I don't have a gas station in my backyard either...
Shopping centers/grocery stores need more charging stations, that's the most realistic place to go to charge when you don't have the capacity to do it at home.
Workplaces too.
I cannot even charge my phone at work under Italian law (I'm a public employee and it would count as malversation).
Man I haven't learned a new word in a long time, and "malversation" is a great one.
Wow that's a bit of a stretch 😂
The issue is charging takes a while, while refuelling is pretty much instantaneous
90% of people can charge their car enough in between Shopping trips
People that live in the city don't usually go shopping with their cars (at least here in central Europe) and people in the countryside will have enough space for a charger anyways.
People do everything in their cars in the U.S.
Yeah, and not being Amercian is a crime on the internet, I know.
This article is about cars being made in the U.S., so it's kind of about the U.S....
The article is, but this discussion didn't really specifically mention the US, so I assumed we were talking about EVs in general
What? Why would you react that way, this isn't even an "America is the only country that exists" moment. Nobody disagreed with you, insulted you, misinterpreted you, etc...
DC fast charging is fairly fast. My car goes from 10-80 in less than 20 minutes in summer, and probably 35 minutes in winter. My wife spends more time than that in grocery stores weekly.
4 times longer refueling is crazy that's only 80 percent versus 100 % refueling.
The point is that you're already parking your car for that much time while you're doing other things. They just need to put more charging stations near those things.
Imagine instead every week having to make a special trip with your vehicle to a designated location where you have to interact with a point-of-sale that is trying to upsell you car washing services or loyalty program enrollment with a good chance of skimmers installed on credit card readers.
You then have to dispense gallons of fluid of highly flammable liquid which you, in the week ahead, will turn into carbon dioxide that will slowly alter the climate of your planet to the point that hundreds of species of plants and wildlife die off.
On the financial side, the price of the liquid is so variable that it can change multiple times a day based on market demands and world events. Your country may go to war to ensure you getting that liquid. There will be deaths of your countryman to make sure you get that liquid.
Instead, I pull the car into the garage and plug a cable in. When I get in the car the next day, its full. So yes, one of these sounds crazy, but not the one you say it is.
The idea is that you charge when you go somewhere with a parking lot where you are staying for more than a few minutes. Almost everyone whose primary mode of transportation parks somewhere and then spends 30+ minutes inside, whether that be restaurants, grocery stores, work, or somewhere else. In that time I get get 200 miles of range, which is far more than I actually use most weeks.
Even if we're talking road trips, after 4 hours of driving (often much less), you're going to want to get out, stretch, pee, and get a bite to eat. All stuff that easily takes 20 minutes.
4 hours at 70mph is 280 miles. Add 20% for not charging all the way (which is faster and is easier on the battery). Add another 20% for cold weather. That gets us to about 400 miles. EVs on the market now are hitting 350 miles, and that number is only going up in the next few years.
EVs past 350 to 400 mile range only serve a small section of the population that likes to pee in a bottle and eat sandwiches prepared ahead of time so they can go 7 hours at once. Most ICE cars don't have that kind of range. We don't need to wait around just to serve this handful of people. In fact, we should keep to around 350-400 miles and use any further advancements to reduce weight.
Well, you also have to account for the fact that you're not supposed to completely charge (or discharge) a lithium battery pack. 80% is effectively full (if you care about cell longevity)
e: Li-Ion to lithium
Planning on a 1-to-1 swap between traditional cars and EVs is the crassest mistake. It would take a paradigm shift that emphasizes remote work, carpooling and carsharing in order to make private transportation really sustainable.
Good point. It's a sort of chicken egg problem. Lack of ev and no investment for infrastructure, resulting in even less ev.
Here in Germany, in my local town, they build hydrogen fuel stations instead of charging stations. Very strange.
You can't have infrastructure without the cars, and you can't have the cars without the infrastructure. The solution to this catch-22 is to force the infrastructure to catch up.
Or maybe instead of blocking everything on the theory a complete charging solution will magically appear despite no demand, we can go ahead with the 59% of the population living in a house, and can decide to install a charger. Maybe we can go ahead with charger networks we already have, already allowing most road trips and getting better continuously. And we can use all that demand, all that money to keep building out a better and better charging solution.
FYI - buddy of mine has an EV at a townhouse with no opportunity to charge, and just goes to a supercharger once a week to top off. It may be inconvenient, but it’s not onerous
Electric cars don't normally need a battery replacement during the car's lifetime. If the battery needs to be replaced, the car has usually already been running longer than most ICE cars ever would. The used market for EVs used to be pretty dire, with little supply and awful pricing. But it's slowly getting better. But of course the fact remains, that there is currently a lot of demand for cheap EVs and little supply. The Chinese are gearing up to eat up that part of the market.
What?
Show me a battery that goes 200k - 300k.
Just because the average consumer is an idiot and replaces cars long before then doesn't mean the vehicles can't go that far.
Every car my family has owned for the last 30 years has gone at least 200k, some 300k+. My current 2005 vehicle is at 270k, and I expect many more years from it, barring an accident. Our newest vehicle is from 2016, and is approaching 100k. An electric vehicle would be needing a battery soon, while all mine needs is an oil change, and perhaps a timing belt for $50 (to be fair, I'll probably spend $250 and replace the water pump, idlers, and primary belt while I'm there. Last time was 100k miles ago).
I can keep you updated on my own EV ownership if you'd like. I bought a '22 Chevy Bolt brand new for $27k a hair over 12 months ago and so far it's got 51,000 miles on the odometer and the battery has lost only 10 miles of range compared to the 240 it came with, which is such a small loss it might actually be due to the wind or temps on my test since I do my range tests on the freeway during road trips. Despite driving on average more than 137 miles every single day in this EV during the summer, rain, winter, and multiple snow storms (yay Midwest -_-), the battery seems to be holding up pretty well. My plan is to drive the car for at least 5 years before considering a replacement, at which point I should have between 230-270k on the odometer. The only maintenance items on the car are tires every 50-60k, new coolant in the coolant loops every 150k, brakes every 100k or whenever they wear out (which varies wildly based on how an EV is driven), and wipers + wiper fluid as needed.
My goal here isn't to put you on blast or call you a liar because skepticism is fair. I'm just sharing my own experience so far with a car that runs on EV tech last updated in 2015. I was pretty worried the "abuse" I'd be putting it through with my driving would cause it to have problems or perform worse than it should, but so far it's doing great and the battery isn't any worse for wear than other Bolts who have published their numbers online.
Personally I'm really looking forward to finding out how well the 2022+ Tesla Model 3s do with the new LFP battery because supposedly they'll be a big improvement over the NCM batteries they have been using (which my car also uses) when it comes to longevity and being left alone for really long periods of time (months, years).
EV batteries are lasting longer than expected.
Also, when accounting for maintenance over, EV's can be cheaper over time even with a battery replacement. They don't need oil, engine coolest, or transmission fluid. There's a whole life support system for ICE cars that EVs just don't have, and what replaces it tends to last indefinitely if there are no manufacturing defects or have an abusive owner. Brake maintenance is also reduced; they need the fluid changed, but regen braking tends to reduce the need to replace pads. Manufactures were already seeing pads and rotors on hybrids last nearly the life of the vehicle.
It all adds up, and while the $10k battery cost years down the line scares people as one big number, it often ends up being less than what you would have spent on maintenance over the same time period.
Finally, the batteries may not be worthless at the end of that time. Putting them in houses for backup power is often still feasible. You're just not getting the same range out of them anymore.
Aside from the Leaf, which does not have any sort of battery temperature management, I wouldn't expect an EV to need a battery so soon.
Teslas can easily make it to 200k miles at while retaining >80% of peak capacity, according to
.
Most of the other brands don't have enough vehicles approaching that milestone that I could find data on.
Yeah, I don't know why you think this, but there are plenty of EV taxis out there with 200k miles on them.
And they don't need oil changes, timing belts, spark plugs, idlers, water pumps or primary belts. And their brakes last easily twice as long thanks to regenerative braking.
So, after about 300k miles, you recycle your battery pack and get a 3rd party one installed for $5k-$10k and go for another 200k miles.
My 2008 Prius has ticked over 200k with the original battery pack. Sure it's only a hybrid instead of a full on EV, but it's going strong.
My longest lived ICE car was my Delta 88. 261k before the second shitty GM transmission gave out. The first one died at 180k and was slippy from 120k.
I hope to see more cheap cars by 2025 when VW starts doing their id1 and id2. The rest of the manufacturers need to follow suit or lose out of the massive market for mini and micros.
Personally I did get a used EV. It had driven less than 200km in total, but I got it at about 70% of the normal price. The battery is fine. The used market isn't just for worn out cars. People sell almost new cars for a variety of reasons, so it's worth looking at the used market already. The batteries in modern cars are generally better than their reputation. I wouldn't want to get a 7-10 year old EV, but anything newer is just fine.
Bwahahaha that's not used. That's new. Talk to us again when you pick up a car with 50 000 on it.
I mean, that's my point. The used market isn't all beater cars. There are almost new EVs available on the used market. 3 years ago they didn't exist at all. The used market back then only had EVs with poor batteries, but these days you can find new cars in the used market with new batteries, but still at a massive price discount only for being used slightly.
Many people still have the common idea that used EVs are risky, so the prices drop a lot from very little use. Also because the technology in new cars evolves very quickly, so you can get last years models considerably cheaper.
I picked up a used EV with about 20,000 miles on it and it still felt like new.
20-30K?! Holy crap. I've never spent more than 10K on a car. But then I've never bought a new car...
There's always one smug dunger driver in the comments.
Let people have nice things, OK?
You guys drive? 💀 My rollerblades were only $200 and the ball bearings are in great shape.
you'll spent 10k minumum on replacing a battery on a used tesla
I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact the only electric car I'll ever own will be a 10 year old Nissan Leaf.
Why does it have to be new? Whats wrong with a nearly new car that is only a couple of years old? Warranty, at least in Europe covers the major components like body shell and battery for 7 to 10 years now.
Part of reducing the impact of cars to the environment is making them last longer and EVs have the opportunity to be fully refurbished at what would have been the end of their normal lifespan to better than new. Replacing the battery pack for a more modern and denser version, replacing the motor for a more efficient and powerful one, even replace the entertainment unit with a more modern one. Sure, this is expensive but you are basically getting a new car for considerably less than a new car.
While I personally think Musk can eat a bag of dicks, the ability to upcycle early Teslas using Tesla parts is very welcome. It needs to be legally mandated that manufacturers have to offer this and end the cycle of scrapping cars.
What you described is already done with ICE vehicles. Engines and transmissions are rebuilt all the time. Even cars that are totaled are typically given a second life.
Ultimately it's the vehicle's body and frame that determine when it's at the end of it's life. You're not going to put a new battery in a tesla with a rusted out frame.
Arguably the lifespan could be worse for EVs since replacing the batteries is so expensive (more than a typical engine rebuild) that many probably won't be willing to put that much money into an old vehicle.
Rarely happens though in practice with ICE cars, average age of a car being scrapped in the UK is about 13 years, average age on the road is about 8 years. Car lifespan has been increasing in Western Europe as car reliability has improved. In general Cars do not rust as quickly as they used to, obviously there will be individual Friday afternoon shit boxes or even entire ranges as with Merc between the 90s and early 2000s. But in general they are light years better than pre 2000s and especially pre 1980s when they could start rusting their first year.
In practice the cost to repair vs. value of the car tends to dictate its lifespan in Europe, it becomes cheaper to replace the car than fix it. This is the cycle we need to end.
Current it tends to be limited to enthusiasts to upgrade the capabilities of ICE cars such as more powerful or efficient engine, etc. I do not see this market changing with EVs, you can already by performance upgrades for Teslas for example, even if I wouldn't touch these 3rd party performance upgrades with a ten foot pole (outside of things like brakes and suspension).
Retrofitting a much more efficient engine to a modern ICE car is difficult, it requires all sorts of other upgrades to enable it and manufacturers have been busy trying to lock people out, see BMW and their ECU encryption. Retrofitting a larger battery, particularly to earlier cars is reasonably trivial in comparison and the old battery still has value, whereas a knackered gearbox/engine/ecu combo is worth considerably less for the average car.
This should be similar to a right to repair law for EVs that also enables them to take advantage of the latest tech.
Don't manufacturers charge something close to the price of a new car to exchange the battery?
Like they based the entire business model around the smartphone model of making them "disposable" so you keep buying new ones
Nope, the typical £10k to £12k on cars costing £30k, something like a Zoe for example, a Tesla Model S is around £20k to £30k depending on size with the Tesla being £60k to £100k to buy new.
The old battery is still worth a significant chunk of change as well, they certainly do not need to go in the bin. We haven't even started refurbishing old batteries yet, just repurposing them.
Couple that with more modern batteries often being bigger capacity for same sized packaging. Model S 60kwh with 70% usable is approx. 42kwh usable. Upgrade that to 85kwh and you've doubled your usable battery, so better than new.
Oh, and you'll often get another 7 to 10 year guarantee on the battery as well.
So nothing like a phone battery, well maybe one from Apple replaced by apple with an actual enforable warranty