If someone wants an EV fine go ahead but I don't. My diesel is one of the cleanest ever, an EV costs more than some people's take home pay for the year.
To be fair so do a lot of petrol and diesel cars. Last time I looked they weren't given away free by manufactures. A mid range Focus is £25k these days.
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If someone wants an EV fine go ahead but I don't. My diesel is one of the cleanest ever, an EV costs more than some people's take home pay for the year.
To be fair so do a lot of petrol and diesel cars. Last time I looked they weren't given away free by manufactures. A mid range Focus is £25k these days.
Before the obligatory discount. I'd put good money on getting about 20-25% off that, at least for Fords, Vauxhalls, Renaults, Nissans, etc. Less for Japanese and German marques though.
Similarly sized and kitted-out EVs will cost - with grant - upwards of £35k, often considerably more. And that's when battery components'raw materials are still in relatively plentiful supply.
Wait until all the i****ic laws kick in that will force most people to choose between giving up their ICE car entirely, bankrupting themselves to buy an EV or risk buying an old EV whose batteries may give up the ghost and require a £5k - £15k pack change (which can't be afforded) at any point, with a decent possibility that no replacement parts will be either available at all or at least for months due to extra demand.
Rarely does a well-maintained ICE car suddenly 'give up' engine-wise, that requires 4 or 5 figure interventions. The problem with EVs compared to ICE vehicles is that wear and tear maintenance comes in far bigger chunks at lesser intervals than ICE cars, so it is often luck of the draw whether owning one over 5 years old is going to be cheap or very costly indeed. Much easier to predict for ICE cars - if well maintained with a documented FSH.
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I take the point but I don't agree it is easier to predict ICE cars. There is loads it is very difficult to predict. There is also lots a FSH is totally irrelevant to what may go wrong.
It is actually quite easy to check a EV car - you just check the battery capacity and condition. That is the main concern. They tend to degrade at a very steady rate, not suddenly over night.
ICE cars will not vanish over night. It will be a 20 year or more transition and in 10-15 years time a used market at all price levels will develop just as it is now.
I have my doubts about EV cars but I have no doubt there will be cheap ones about. In fact £4k will get you a perfectly decent used Leaf now. I realise that may not be everyone's cup of tea but there is a used market already and it will develop.
Edited by pd on 27/04/2021 at 13:28
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Suggesting that EVs will be more expensive to maintain with costs coming in larger "chunks" as the vehicle ages is unsubstantiated nonsense.
EV motors are far less complex. ICE has countless bearing surfaces (big ends, camshaft(s), little ends etc) + losts of reciprocating parts - pistons, valves. By comparison the scope for wear inside an electric motor is trivial. EV still requires a differential, but probably doesn't need a clutch and gearbox with more cogs and bearings.
Both motors rely on electronics fed by sensors for management - no great difference there!
Battery packs do not suddenly fail completely. Individual cells can be replaced.
Now for a reality check - right now there is far more accumulated knowledge about ICE engineering than EV, and volumes of ICE are still much higher reducing costs of new vehicles and spare parts. There are also issues for some related to range and recharging.
Fast forward 5-10 years and ICE will be completely stalled as a technology - car companies simply will not invest in a technology rendered obselete either by legislation or customer demand.
Volumes of EV will be larger and many of the perceived engineering, recharging, battery issues resolved. Servicing the needs of S/H EVs will become routine.
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Suggesting that EVs will be more expensive to maintain with costs coming in larger "chunks" as the vehicle ages is unsubstantiated nonsense.
EV motors are far less complex. ICE has countless bearing surfaces (big ends, camshaft(s), little ends etc) + losts of reciprocating parts - pistons, valves. By comparison the scope for wear inside an electric motor is trivial. EV still requires a differential, but probably doesn't need a clutch and gearbox with more cogs and bearings.
That is proving my argument. I never said that ICE cars have overall lower costs over its lifetime, but that they are spread out more evenly, because more of them are wear and tear and less are electronics (see below).
Both motors rely on electronics fed by sensors for management - no great difference there!
Battery packs do not suddenly fail completely. Individual cells can be replaced.
Electronics often suddenly fail, batteries included. Difference is the EVs have more of them.
Now for a reality check - right now there is far more accumulated knowledge about ICE engineering than EV, and volumes of ICE are still much higher reducing costs of new vehicles and spare parts. There are also issues for some related to range and recharging.
Fast forward 5-10 years and ICE will be completely stalled as a technology - car companies simply will not invest in a technology rendered obselete either by legislation or customer demand.
Only because laws are saying so, not because they should be. That doesn't mean that those laws are correct. You still don't say where all the batteries' raw material will be sourced, given how much a vehicle needs compared to a phone or laptop.
Volumes of EV will be larger and many of the perceived engineering, recharging, battery issues resolved. Servicing the needs of S/H EVs will become routine.
See above on electronics. Despite decades of improvements, I have yet to own a TV, computer or phone that gave several weeks worth of notice that a major part was about to give up, with only desktop PCs (box, not monitors) being able to swap out parts with relative ease and not breaking the bank, but only within about 5 - 6 years of the original sale date (spares are either hiddeously expensive or no longer made).
Why will EVs be any different?
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Interesting article on the BBC website about recycling electric car batteries:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56574779
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My experience of modern electronics is they are very reliable:
unless they are French or German or US or Korean,
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My experience of modern electronics is they are very reliable:
unless they are French or German or US or Korean,
I wouldn't say that Chinese designed and made stuff is that great either - it dependes on the make and price. The few Japanese designed and made electronics I still have left (including in my car) are decent in terms of longevity and reliability.
My general point was that electronics don't slowly give up for the most part, unlike most mechanical devices, which gives the operator.owner at least some visual or audible forewarning that they are about to break - sometimes months or even a year away (e.g. suspension parts or a clutch).
Electronics, on the othe hand, mostly suddenly break - you may on some get a small amount of notice, like a mechanical HDD starting to sound odd before the dreaded clunk or click-click of death, but it tends to be just a few days at most.
A more modern designed SSD storage device will essentially give no warning (rather like a light bulb) and just fail - it will likely last longer than the mechanical platter HDD, but it means for absolute safety (of data), you need two of them arranged in a RAID array or have an external backup drive that does it job every day to ensure the vital data isn't lost due to a storage drive failure. Not a cheap option. I've had HDDs fail, and I've managed to save 99% of the data because I've had time to back up the latest stuff.
With EVs, an electric motor may suddenly fail, as may any or all of the batteries. The problem is that the older the EV gets, the less chance replacements can be cheaply sourced or at all (rather like replacement parts for old computers or home AV), and the less chance any second hand car owner would be able to afford to pay that sort of money to replace said broken part(s).
At least with an ICE car, you mostly get a decent amount of forewarning of trouble with the expensive parts, especially if the car has been well-maintained over its life. With an EV, things like the batteries and motors can be tested for efficiency, but that's it - actual wear of their internals cannot really be cheacked or diagnosed (they are sealed for life units for the most part), whether directly or via indirect means, as many ICE engine-related issues can be (without taking the engine to bits).
That's why hardly anyone nowadays repairs home electronics equipment - either the whole device gets junked, becaue it's either impossible to repair, or too expensive compared to the (entire unit) replacement cost.
My old Powermax boiler was a case in point - the electronics are so scarce now that, together with certain parts that only fit that boiler that it was going to cost me nearly a third of the entire cost of fitting a new boiler (including tortuous new flue and condensate routes) to fix it, with the rest of the boiler still likely near end-of-life anyway. Add to that no local plumber is qualified (or wants) to work on them made my choice inevitable.
With EVs, I'm already hearing many reports about Tesla refusing to repair or maintain their early cars (over 10yo), leaving owners at the mercy of the local market for that, assuming (like my old boiler) they can get anyone to work on it or get quality parts at all or at a reasonable price, possibly making them obsolete/uneconomic to repair in just over a decade. My ICE car is 15yo and still going nicely indeed.
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"My ICE car is 15yo and still going nicely indeed."
Mu house boiler was installed in 1983 so it's 38 years old.
Works very well thank you.
Some parts are still available. (Sometimes new on ebay and cheap)
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"My ICE car is 15yo and still going nicely indeed."
Mu house boiler was installed in 1983 so it's 38 years old.
Works very well thank you.
Some parts are still available. (Sometimes new on ebay and cheap)
Domestic gas boilers create about the same amount on NOx as road transport vehicles, about 14% of the total - but it's politically easier to ban the sales of new IC cars than ban the sales of domestic gas boilers.
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"My ICE car is 15yo and still going nicely indeed."
Mu house boiler was installed in 1983 so it's 38 years old.
Works very well thank you.
Some parts are still available. (Sometimes new on ebay and cheap)
Domestic gas boilers create about the same amount on NOx as road transport vehicles, about 14% of the total - but it's politically easier to ban the sales of new IC cars than ban the sales of domestic gas boilers.
There is a push to change to alternative heating as well...just electric cars are further along their development
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"My ICE car is 15yo and still going nicely indeed."
Mu house boiler was installed in 1983 so it's 38 years old.
Works very well thank you.
Some parts are still available. (Sometimes new on ebay and cheap)
Domestic gas boilers create about the same amount on NOx as road transport vehicles, about 14% of the total - but it's politically easier to ban the sales of new IC cars than ban the sales of domestic gas boilers.
There is a push to change to alternative heating as well...just electric cars are further along their development
Actually not so - air source heat pumps have been around for ages now (all air source heat pumps are are A/C units with the cooling side disabled), it's just that there wasn't any incentive to switch, plus the disincentive that still exists (similar to that for EV charging at home) for people living in flats, terraced or older housing - either:
Nowhere (physically) to put the 'outdoor units';
Too expensive or dangerous (up several meters requiring scaffolding, cherry-picker or not possible [high-rise flats]) to install, or;
As many people will face, not sufficient electrical power for their property or flat block to cope, where they cannot afford to upgrade it (or it may not be possible without a complete re-wire, again either too expensive [some may have asbestos to clear] or will need to turf all residents out to strip the place of the existing wiring, etc]);
The outdoor units of said systems are noisy (about 50dbA - imagine if every flat's system is chugging at full power in winter at the same time at 5am) - from experience, some councils won't allow them due to noise restrictions, and neighbours may well (rightly) object to the noise as well.
Similarly for ground source heat pumps - the 'slinky under the ground' units require large open spaces (useless for flats or people with small gardens) that would have to be completely dug up to install the pipework. The other system uses bore holes (flats), but is even more expensive as they need to be at least 25m deep (sometimes much more so if the thermal conductivity of the ground locally is poor), which is why 99.9% are installed when the buildings themselves are constructed, using economies of scale when doing the foundations.
One of the problems with 'alternative' technologies is that all too often, activists, politicians and the media jump on the bandwagon to change without really researching them, looking at ways of resolving/mitigating problems, etc, often because they have little to no expertise on the subject and are blinded by 'science/technology' and the sales patois (e.g. wind turbines [much better to have pushed PV panels for as manyroofs as possible instead), and want to look 'trendy' and 'forward thinking' on 'green issues'.
That's why I think that the big push towards EVs, especially bring forward the sales changeove date and now doing the same for boilers and home energy efficiency is atterly stupid - only the well off can afford it, and yet the rest of us still pays THEM subsidies to do so, despite them being already able to pay the full retail cost.
Many of my former colleagues in Building Services Engineering are in full agreement, as evidenced by the person I referreed to who wrote in to the Telegraph recently about the boilers/home insulation issue.
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Actually not so - air source heat pumps have been around for ages now (all air source heat pumps are are A/C units with the cooling side disabled), it's just that there wasn't any incentive to switch, plus the disincentive that still exists (similar to that for EV charging at home) for people living in flats, terraced or older housing - either:
From what you've said I still think EV's are much further ahead in development - air source pumps may have been around for a while but EV's have been around since the first motorised vehicles and it's only in recent years that they have been more viable for day to day use...mainly due to battery technology. As you said there has not been the incentive to invest money into alternative heating.
I'll ask you again - what fuel source would you propose for the future - both for vehicles and for heating?
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"My ICE car is 15yo and still going nicely indeed."
Mu house boiler was installed in 1983 so it's 38 years old.
Works very well thank you.
Some parts are still available. (Sometimes new on ebay and cheap)
Lucky you. Many other people, myself included, weren't so lucky. My replacement boiler (as its from a good make which should still be around for a long time and uses standard type parts) should fair a lot better than the original though.
As I've detailed in another thread, my PC is not so lucky, though only because of one part, the most crutial one, the motherboard.
That, in my view, will be the problem with cars as they transition from ICE to EV design, because an increasing reliance on sealed-for-life electronics means that small sub components failures neccessitate the replacement of the entire unit, whether due to a lack of parts, they physically cannot be changed without breaking the rest of the component, a lack of repair expertise on that part and/or the cost of the repair.
I still find that with electronics, when a part has to be replaced outside of warranty, especially when the overall unit is reaching 10yo, it is not worth replacing a major component because the likelihood is that something else will fail within the next few years that will not be able to be replaced (see above reasons), making the high cost of replacing the first part a waste of time, given, how much the product is actually worth at the time.
That's why I replaced my oven a few years ago, because the PCB may have been broken as well as the fuse, which would've costed me around £200 total to have repaired, all for a unit at its useful life (15 years). With an ICE car, if the body is not rotting, then it should be relatively easy to see whether it's worth repairing. I'm not sure that would be the case for a 10yo EV owned by a person on a low income.
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You can buy used Tesla spares reasonably cheaply on ebay just as for ICE cars.
I see this becoming the norm..(and is for 15 year old cars anyway. Few buy OE parts when none OE/s.h parts are a factor of one third to one quarter of the price.
But your point on ground pumps and flat dwellers is well made.
I assume many of the people driving "green issues" do not live in flats.
(But like Boris have a country house)
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Cars have been relying on sealed for life electronics for 20 years or more. The transition has nothing to do with ICE to EV.
Most modules: body control, ABS, differentials, HVAC, entertainment, controls etc have been like this increasingly for decades. All of them the official repair is to replace the whole unit. A rear bulb can cost £500 on a modern car whether ICE or EV because it is a LED sealed unit.
Fortunately there is a big industry for repairing things which officially can't be repaired which, along with a used parts market, takes over to keep older cars on the road once they get to 7-8 years old. Most are scrapped by 15 years.
Sure an EV adds more electronics (although removed a lot of complicated stuff which wears as well) but a lot of the car is pretty much identical whatever powers it.
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Cars have been relying on sealed for life electronics for 20 years or more. The transition has nothing to do with ICE to EV.
Most modules: body control, ABS, differentials, HVAC, entertainment, controls etc have been like this increasingly for decades. All of them the official repair is to replace the whole unit. A rear bulb can cost £500 on a modern car whether ICE or EV because it is a LED sealed unit.
Fortunately there is a big industry for repairing things which officially can't be repaired which, along with a used parts market, takes over to keep older cars on the road once they get to 7-8 years old. Most are scrapped by 15 years.
Sure an EV adds more electronics (although removed a lot of complicated stuff which wears as well) but a lot of the car is pretty much identical whatever powers it.
You've just proved your first statement incorrect by the last sentence. I mean, what are the things that most go wrong in modern ICE cars? The electronics, especially the gizmos associated with the three-lettered acronym safety systems, in-car entertainment, sat-mav, etc.
As EVs are entirely that sort of kit, which manufacturers more than don't deny are released to market with the full intention of car buyers being used as defacto beta testers, I won't be putting that much faith in the short or long term reliability of the kit, especially when the technology changes so often, making that installed just 5 years ago effectively obsolete.
Many car manufacturers won't or can't upgrade ICE/in-built satnavs to accept the latest tablet-like OSes because the software itself deliberately precludes updating (crtuicial for satnavs) after a far shorter time than that of PC equipment.
My Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 has not had any OS updates for years, and now many apps won't work at all or are unusable (too slow) because they haven't been supported for updates for 2+ years now. And yet car manufacturers are allowed to get away with it despite them being forced by law to hold spares for car for 10 years after the model goes out of production.
I don't see it being easier for EVs (as evidenced by early Tesla car owners in the US having problems getting them maintained when they get older), in fact, quite the opposite. Ironically, standarisation of parts should make things easier, but I'm still amazed at how often electronics manufacturers deliberately include unique parts in their equipment so it is either uneconomic or impossible to use non-manufacurer reapir shops, if they can be repaired at all.
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And yet car manufacturers are allowed to get away with it despite them being forced by law to hold spares for car for 10 years after the model goes out of production.
Is it actually a legal duty?
I involved for a few years in arranging manufacture of small batches of 'obsolete' spares for the company's products (which were for automotive/rail/marine engines).
I was told that the '10 years spares availability for cars' was an agreement with the SMMT many years ago. It was, I was told, obligatory to provide spares for military application engines for 15 years and 20 years for marine units.
This could be a challenge where patterns/dies were no longer usable or when original manufacturers had gone out of business. Parts manufacture depending on replacement puts the unit cost up to many times that of the original volume produced item. (Cue customer "HOW much??")
These days 3-D printing could help in some of these cases, as always, it is the cost of making 'superseded' parts which is the problem for the end user.
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And yet car manufacturers are allowed to get away with it despite them being forced by law to hold spares for car for 10 years after the model goes out of production.
Is it actually a legal duty?
I involved for a few years in arranging manufacture of small batches of 'obsolete' spares for the company's products (which were for automotive/rail/marine engines).
I was told that the '10 years spares availability for cars' was an agreement with the SMMT many years ago. It was, I was told, obligatory to provide spares for military application engines for 15 years and 20 years for marine units.
This could be a challenge where patterns/dies were no longer usable or when original manufacturers had gone out of business. Parts manufacture depending on replacement puts the unit cost up to many times that of the original volume produced item. (Cue customer "HOW much??")
These days 3-D printing could help in some of these cases, as always, it is the cost of making 'superseded' parts which is the problem for the end user.
Indeed, as I found out 15 years ago when my old mini hifi suffered failed components (tape motor and CD laser drive unit (I assumed it was that because it wouldn't lock onto a keep a track going). Back then, the cost of replacements (including labour and me having to either drive/go by train/courier it to/back from the repair shop) was well over £200, the unit itself originally costing £500.
All the parts had to either be shipped from the US or Japan, which would take several weeks, and none would be the OEM part. I'd already had one motor drive (other tape deck) replaced, and the replacement unit wasn't as good (noisy) as the OEM one.
My old boiler's timer/controller unit failed (one of many parts) for the third time (i.e. it was the second replacement), and it cost £150+postage, assuming there were any left in stock at the only seller in the UK. Ironically it was more difficult to find a plumber willing to work on said boiler (needs special training as it is unusual/safety reasons) - the nearest was about about 2hrs drive away. I can only guess at how much he'd charge for the callout(s).
I can imagine that car manufacturers, like many electronics manufacturers, will make excuses as EVs take over sales volume for why they can't justify keeping sufficient (or any) stocks of spare parts for 10 years after the car goes out of production. I was lucky with my gen-1 Mazda3 (out of production in 2009) that the gen-2 was, under the skin quite similar (especially the engines) to the first gen car, more evolution than revolution (far more the latter for the gen-2 to 3 changes).
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You've just proved your first statement incorrect by the last sentence. I mean, what are the things that most go wrong in modern ICE cars? The electronics, especially the gizmos associated with the three-lettered acronym safety systems, in-car entertainment, sat-mav, etc.
Modern ICE cars are pretty reliable largely as a result of electronics. No trouble prone points and distribution/HT side vastly simplified. Timing set automatically and adjusts for low octane fuel. Cold start is under fully automated control.
Last four faults on my cars have been a clutch, dragging brake and the EOLYS pump on a PSA diesel. No clutch or emissions control gubbins on an EV. No water or oil pump, no cambelt, no turbo and associated plumbing, no EGR.
The only constraint so far for me is range as we've had, for at least 20 years, 2 interchangeable cars. If I accepted mine was just for commuting and other local (ish) stuff then I'd be electric in a blink.
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The nonsense about EVs beggars belief.
Charging - asserting that charging vehices will be limited only to few owners of detached houses is nonsense. Building Research Establishment report the UK housing stock includes detached 18%, semi-detached 25%, bungalows 8%.
So ~50% can probably charge at home - those who cannot may be offset by terraced and flats which have charging points. Charging at supermarkets, work, etc is on top of this.
Power generation and transmission is put forward as a barrier. National Grid see no problem as the transition to EVs will take ~15 years - there may be local problems which need resolution but overall it is a non-issue.
The only question is whether the annual increase in demand is 1,2,3 or 4%, all of which are achievable with planning. I assume (naive?) they realise that any current work to replace and upgrade systems will need to have future demand in mind.
Suggesting EVs will be more expensive to fix as batteries fail is suspect. Manufacturers currently warrant ther batteries for 8-10 years and ~75% capacity.
This is more than any manufacturers offer on ICE components. It seems likely that as more EVs are sold and they age, businesses will evolve in recycling spares and replacement of individual modules.
Purely personally - I would not now buy an EV due to range concerns - driving to the Costas in winter and visiting friends and relatives a 400 mile round trip away would be a pain. As a second car - no problem but there is little economic benefit is spending £20k+ for a car that does only 2-4000 a year.
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You've just proved your first statement incorrect by the last sentence. I mean, what are the things that most go wrong in modern ICE cars? The electronics, especially the gizmos associated with the three-lettered acronym safety systems, in-car entertainment, sat-mav, etc.
neconomic or impossible to use non-manufacurer reapir shops, if they can be repaired at all.
My point is there aren't many more electronics in an EV car than an ICE one. Sure, you have a battery and a motor and.......I can't think of much else. You don't have a transmission ECU, a valve body, loads of engine sensors, EGR valves, twin turbos, DPF/GPF, a cat convertor etc. however.
Other than that all the body control modules, driver interface, HVAC system etc is not a lot if any different.
A Tesla could just as easily be an ICE car with the same approach to tech.
Edited by pd on 30/04/2021 at 19:00
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You've just proved your first statement incorrect by the last sentence. I mean, what are the things that most go wrong in modern ICE cars? The electronics, especially the gizmos associated with the three-lettered acronym safety systems, in-car entertainment, sat-mav, etc.
neconomic or impossible to use non-manufacurer reapir shops, if they can be repaired at all.
My point is there aren't many more electronics in an EV car than an ICE one. Sure, you have a battery and a motor and.......I can't think of much else. You don't have a transmission ECU, a valve body, loads of engine sensors, EGR valves, twin turbos, DPF/GPF, a cat convertor etc. however.
Other than that all the body control modules, driver interface, HVAC system etc is not a lot if any different.
A Tesla could just as easily be an ICE car with the same approach to tech.
You have one or possibly several (one per wheel) motors, plus its own control system, plus a far more fancy battery control system, so nothing that really gives much in the way of notice when said system is about to fail. Plus the CTRL+ALT+DEL thingy when the inevitable 'glitch' leads to the car stopping at 70mph on the motorway.
Given the number of modern (as in all computer controlled) ICE cars that have similar problems, I think that they need to get their act together asap.
The thing with ICE cars (less so for today's latest rather than my 15yo one and older) is that they at least either give fair warning of a major failure (for the most part) or some sensor failure does not necessarily lead to the car literally stopping in its tracks and refusing to go whilst stuck in a dangerous place.
Example - someone I know who owns a Tesla mistakenly thought they'd get to their destination without recharging, the battery pack got fully depleted and the car stopped in the middle of nowhere.
Just like running out of fuel? No - the wheels all locked up, meaning it either had to be dragged behind another vehcile, ruining the tyres and possibly the braking systems, or wait several hours for a large recovery vehicle that could transport it to the nearest charging point. An ICE car, at least one with a physical handbrake, could be pushed out of harms way and/or towed by an ordinary car with a rope to the nearest (likely closer) filling station.
It's also telling that EVs tend to be amongst the most unreliable cars on the road at the moment, IMHO precisely because much of the electronics has not been sufficiently developed and tested before release to market. It's bad enough with the latest ICE cars that need 'software patches' every time they go to the garage (and not just new features for the stereo or satnav). I can remember when cars rarely needed work done on them - recalls were serious flaws in design, now they appear commonplace, like with mobile phones, etc.
Let's just hope that things don't keep going in that direction for things where safety is FAR more crucial.
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Just like running out of fuel? No - the wheels all locked up, meaning it either had to be dragged behind another vehcile, ruining the tyres and possibly the braking systems, or wait several hours for a large recovery vehicle that could transport it to the nearest charging point.
I`ve heard this before, but not if there is an explanation of why this happens, they should be designed to release all wheels with a backup battery to release EHB if they have one? no idea if they have or not
or is it electro magnetic force that lock the wheels in place so they cannot move? I`m puzzled why this should work like that but I don`t know much about Tesla though plenty around my way
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What actual evidence is there that EV cars are more unreliable? I am not disputing it, just never seen or heard of any.
I think you are underestimating just how much is electrical compared to mechanical in a modern 2021 car. A lot of electrical failures will indeed bring an ICE car to a halt.
My views on people running out is that someone who runs out of petrol or diesel is a bit of an i**** and someone who runs out of electricity is a bit of an i****.
Like ICE cars most EVs will in fact go beyond the zero miles readout so if you do run out you have to really pushed it. Most go into a "limp" mode beforehand as well (as do some ICE cars).
I'm no great EV car fan but they are just cars not a lot different to the cars we have and there will be good ones and bad ones, reliable ones and unreliable ones just like we have always had. I am relaxed about the change.
Edited by pd on 01/05/2021 at 13:51
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Incidentally if memory serves Teslas do not "lock up". They drop down to 15mph then eventually stop and then come to a halt and go into park just as many ICE cars do when you turn them off.
To move them a small amount you put them in neutral and they can be loaded onto a flatbed or pushed a small distance. They should not be towed.
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Incidentally if memory serves Teslas do not "lock up". They drop down to 15mph then eventually stop and then come to a halt and go into park just as many ICE cars do when you turn them off.
To move them a small amount you put them in neutral and they can be loaded onto a flatbed or pushed a small distance. They should not be towed.
Well, all I'm doing is relating the story as told. Incidentally, how can you put an EV in 'neutral' if it has no power? Aren't they all fly-by-wire with no physical on-off contacts for such things?
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Incidentally if memory serves Teslas do not "lock up". They drop down to 15mph then eventually stop and then come to a halt and go into park just as many ICE cars do when you turn them off.
To move them a small amount you put them in neutral and they can be loaded onto a flatbed or pushed a small distance. They should not be towed.
Well, all I'm doing is relating the story as told. Incidentally, how can you put an EV in 'neutral' if it has no power? Aren't they all fly-by-wire with no physical on-off contacts for such things?
They stop before they run completely out of power so basic controls will still work, just not enough power to move. Many have a conventional 12v battery as well.
Tesla call it "transport mode" I think. No modern auto has a direct link to the transmission now that I am aware of so all have some sort of way of getting them being able to move.
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My views on people running out is that someone who runs out of petrol or diesel is a bit of an i**** and someone who runs out of electricity is a bit of an i****.
I've ran out of fuel once before, Peugeot 107 courtesy car - the wonderful led fuel readout went from 3 bars ( half full ) to no bars in the space of 7 miles - it didn't even make the next filling station.
Coasted to a halt in the inside lane, stuck it in 2nd gear & used a combination of starter / clutch to get it to roll the couple of hundred yards on to the filling station forecourt.
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