A few years back, the world went EV-crazy in a way that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Numerous automakers promised to go all-EV within just a few years, spending billions to retool factories and revamp supply chains. It wasn’t clear that there was market demand for so many EVs, it wasn’t clear infrastructure could keep up, and it wasn’t clear that the political future would sufficiently support so many EVs. And yet, company after company — most likely afraid of falling behind, most likely trying to look “cutting edge” in the eyes of shareholders who couldn’t keep their eyes off Tesla stocks, and many just getting caught up in the hype — made the commitment. Toyota stood back and waited, taking an absolute beating from much of the media. Fast forward to the modern era, and harsh realities that should have been obvious from day one have made themselves clear: If you’re not Tesla, getting tens of millions of people to drive electric is going to take time, and in that time, you stand to lose billions.
Governments and shareholders can have a huge influence on automakers, but it’s human beings who have to spend their money on cars, so it’s those human beings — i.e. the marketplace — that should, within the confines of regulations, always be the main driver of product decisions. Always. That’s ultimately the failure that has taken place, en masse, in the auto industry in the last five-ish years: too many carmakers making product decisions based on shareholder opinion, not on consumer desires.
OK, to be fair, many of these automakers were seeing Tesla run away with their marketshare, so it’s only natural to think “Maybe we can do that?” especially in the face of tightening environmental regs around the world. But it’s become clear that Tesla is an anomaly; the company was first to market, it owns the very best EV charging network, it’s sold a ton of EV credits to get where it is, it grew during a very different economic time when interest rates were low and raising money — especially via people buying into the exciting company promising the moon (and then Mars) — was relatively easy; Tesla raised lots of cash by promises it hasn’t yet delivered, and it’s helmed by the larger-than-life Elon Musk. Tesla is its own thing, and trying to copy it to win over huge EV volumes in 2024 is a futile effort. That’s not really an opinion, either; we recently wrote that “Rivian Lost $39,130 For Every Vehicle It Sold Last Quarter“; and in that same article you’ll read the subheading “Lucid Loses $341,604 Per Car, But That’s Better News Somehow.” Ford is losing a bunch of money on EVs, too.
EV adoption isn’t “tanking,” but the growth of EVs in the U.S. marketplace is definitely slowing down, as our friends at InsideEVs point out. Pricing and infrastructure are key issues slowing down EV growth, leaving automakers — who are all fighting for the relative small (but growing! See chart below) chunk of the EV market that Tesla doesn’t firmly dominate — with a dilemma: Where do we go next?
I’ve been saying this for over a year now: The answer is Extended Range Electric Vehicles (EREVs), and I do not see it as a short-term, interim solution. I see it as a long-term one.
Now, finally, it seems I’m not alone in this thinking.
EREVs Are Inevitable
Many carmakers are rolling out more and more conventional hybrids, and there’s no question that these will remain popular for years to come. EVs are also sticking around for the long haul, as are conventional PHEVs. But there exists a third option — one that we’ve seen unsuccessfully deployed only a single time, in significant volume, in U.S. history (two if you count the Volt), but that has really taken off in the world’s strongest EV market, China. I’m talking about the EREV, the Extended Range Electric Vehicle.
If you’re not familiar with what an EREV is, the short of it is that it’s an electric car with a small gasoline generator acting as backup. All that gasoline engine does is cut on when the main battery gets low, generating electricity to keep the battery from depleting completely. The gas engine does not actually propel the car directly (which is why I don’t consider the Chevy Volt a true EREV — its low range also disqualifies it in my mind). Thus, this gasoline range extender allows you to keep driving even after the high-voltage battery that you charged via a plug runs out of juice. It’s basically a backup to fix the whole “range anxiety” issue.
I’ve been preaching the gospel of EREVs ever since I sat in a BMW i3 back in early 2023 and purchased two thereafter; I’ve written numerous stories defending the concept of EREVs and calling for more of them on the market. I’m pleased to see that, finally, it is happening. The EREV wave is coming.
When the Ram Ramcharger came out as the first EREV pickup truck ever planned for the U.S. market, I wrote the headline “The 2025 Ram Ramcharger: A Tesla-Sized Battery And A Big Gas Engine Create The Perfect Truck.” Then, VW’s new brand Scout expressly invited me to its launch event because the brand was aware of my pro-EREV work; Scout launched a truck and SUV that will offer a small gasoline range-extender (REX), and the world — and I — went gaga. In fact, even though we don’t have official figures breaking down the EREV/BEV ratio of Scout pre-orders, this forum post indicates that the vast majority of Scout preorders were indeed for the models equipped with the “Harvester” range extender.
Yesterday at the LA Auto Show, Hyundai’s José Muñoz showed off the new Hyundai Ioniq 9, and in his talk with the media he said the company is planning on building EREVs. “EREVs have the potential to lower cost and increase driving range,” he said. I later had a chat with Petar Danilovic, Senior VP of Product Marketing at Volkswagen. I asked him about EREVs, and he said VW is looking into it in the long-term, before he edited himself a bit. “Maybe even mid-term,” he said (as in, in the not-so-distant future). “The EREV is a good combination for people who might not be ready to go 100% electric.”
On top of that, Lotus — who previously promised to go full-EV as a brand — has decided, per Autocar, that it’s going to pursue EREVs. (EREV tech as a way to allow for a lighter vehicle with instant EV torque is a fun thought). Plus Jeep said the Wagoneer will get a Range Extender (Rex), too. So now we have Ram, Scout, Hyundai, VW (eventually), Jeep, and Lotus all going this route. And there’s more. Ford in July made it clear that Super Dutys (a great application, as you can avoid idling on job sites) are going EREV, and in August The Blue Oval issued a press release that included this nugget:
Ford will develop a new family of electrified three-row SUVs which will include hybrid technologies that can offer breakthrough efficiency, performance benefits and emissions reductions versus pure gas vehicles and extend the range of the vehicle on road trips relative to pure electric vehicles.
They’re describing an EREV. In fact, Jim Farley recently replied to my tweet about this:
David, interesting comments……
— Jim Farley (@jimfarley98) October 26, 2024
It’s a cryptic response, but I read it as him agreeing.
View on Threads
I replied to a Threads post a few weeks ago, saying to automotive industry expert and Autopian contributor Sam Abuelsamid that “EREVs are inevitable.” And he didn’t think I was totally full of it, because as an analyst he wrote the following for Guidehouse Insights: “The Range Extender May Finally Have Its Moment.” In the article, he says GM is likely also going to offer EREVs, and that “The EREV will likely have a home in the automotive landscape for at least the next decade or two as battery technology and charging infrastructure continue to evolve.”
Indeed. Over a decade after the BMW i3 launched for the U.S. market, EREVs are coming. Finally.
Price And Range
When it comes to EV sales in the U.S., there are two metrics that consumers care about most: range and price. The former’s importance is really unparalleled in automotive history. There has never been a single performance metric as important in automobile sales as EV range — not MPG, not 0-60, not ride quality or handling. It’s at the point where consumers say things like “Why would I buy that Mercedes EV when I can buy this Hyundai with more range for less money?” Imagine hearing that about an old Elantra compared to a C-Class!
Some of this has to do with how touchscreens/Apple Carplay/Android Auto has really leveled the cabin user-interface playing field, some of this has to do with how good car quality has become, and much of this has to do with the similar driving experience between various EVs (similar torque delivery, weight distribution, silent operation, etc.). But the point is: In the EV marketplace, range dominates. And right ahead of it is price. The problem is that, while range and price are largely unrelated in an internal combustion engine since blow-moulding a larger fuel tank is trivial, in EVs the two are at odds with one another. High range necessitates a significantly higher price (and also higher weight, which requires more battery to ensure good range, which adds weight, which requires more battery… it’s a vicious cycle).
There are really only a few levers to pull to solve this: You can challenge the notion that consumers need high range, you can reduce the price of batteries, or you can reduce how much battery a car needs in order to achieve a high range.
The second option is everyone’s goal: We all want cheap batteries. But we’re not there yet, technologically. The first option — to get consumers to be OK with lower-range vehicles, is not going to happen. The average American simply isn’t OK with a car that can only drive 150 miles on a charge, even if that person only drives a few miles a day.
Before we get to the third option, let’s stay here for a moment, because far too many journalists say things like “People don’t need as much range as they think; they should just drive low-range EVs.” As an engineer, I totally support that. But the reality is that the average consumer’s range-lust is not the problem — in business, the consumer can never be seen as a problem, and in fact, people’s thirst for high-range even though they likely don’t need it is fairly typical consumer behavior.
Consumers have historically purchased cars for what they are capable of, regardless of how consumers actually use those vehicles. How many Ford F-150 owners need to be able to frequently tow 10,000 pounds? How many Porsche owners need the ability to snap off an insanely quick Nürburgring time? How many Jeep Wrangler owners need to be able to make it through the Rubicon Trail? Very few, but consumers buy cars based on the thought: “But if I wanted to, I could.” This is normal. This is capitalism.
The issue is that, anytime you’re using something for only a small fraction of its capability, it leads to compromise. The Wrangler rides like crap, the F-150 is a beast to drive around town, and a Porsche 911 can barely fit a pair of golf clubs, and none of those are particularly efficient. But compared to these examples, a typical 350-mile electric vehicle (especially a large one) driven by someone who really only needs 50 miles daily yields way, way worse compromises. That consumer has to carry around an extra 1,500 pounds, and they might have to pay an extra $10+ grand, all for a capability they rarely use. It’s a hideous compromise, and it’s just not worth it to many Americans. EREVs have the potential to mitigate this.
America Wants High-Energy Cars
Now let’s get back to that third “lever” one can pull to satisfy consumers’ price/range concerns: Reduce the number of batteries needed to move a vehicle down the road — in other words, reduce the energy needed to propel a car forward. This is a concept called “Vehicle Demand Energy,” and it’s driven by things like aerodynamics, curb weight, bearing friction, rolling resistance (which is related to curb weight), and on and on. (These terms can be mathematically modeled in terms of what are called “ABC Coefficients.”)
This is EV Automaker Lucid’s strategy moving forward (I’m a huge fan of Lucid, because it’s a true engineer’s company led by an engineer, and lots of my geeky friends work there). I had a chance to speak with the company’s CEO, Peter Rawlinson, last summer, and — after he stated that “it is not possible today with today’s technology to make an affordable pickup truck with anything [other] than internal combustion” — he told me that, though “There’s a great argument for … [an] onboard generator,” Lucid will not be heading down that path.
“What I wanna do is go to the shorter range EVs, ultra-efficient six miles per kilowatt hour, 240 miles range. That is a 40 kilowatt-hour pack,” he told me, “And then you put that [battery] underneath the front seat and you’ve got a super affordable family car. The battery doesn’t weigh 650 kg. It weighs 200 kg and then battery chemistry advances [can improve that range even more at a later point].”
I think that’s a great strategy for certain segments, but not for the U.S. market at large.
That’s because Americans don’t want low-range EVs, nor do they want small cars. America is a truck and SUV market, which is why GM has axed legendary nameplates like the Chevy Impala and Malibu, and Stellantis and Ford don’t offer a single sedan today. Expecting Americans to give up SUVs and trucks for small cars in order to get more range for their money just ain’t gonna happen organically (it doesn’t help that small cars see higher fatality rates, and that in the U.S. you almost have to have a big car to feel safe). High-range small and midsize crossovers — not unsubstantial classes, to be sure — will get cheaper and cheaper as they become even more efficient, and we’re starting to see that already (see the Equinox EV, which is great) — this is a segment for which EREVs perhaps make less sense. But big trucks and big SUVs simply don’t work as affordable EVs. In fact, right now there are zero affordable, competitive electric pickup trucks or large SUVs on the American market, especially if the EV tax credit goes away.
Rivians and the long-range Kia EV9 are both too expensive, every EV pickup truck is either too pricey or can’t tow nearly far enough on a charge, and as for hard-core off-road competitors to the Wrangler and Bronco? Forget about it. Throwing 35-inch tires on an EV will damage Vehicle Demand Energy so much it just won’t work out.
I’m all for reducing Vehicle Demand Energy to reduce overall EV cost, and I’m for offering lots of lower-range models, but Americans aren’t giving up full-size pickups, large three-row SUVs, or off-roaders, and if you want to get lots of folks driving electric as quickly as possible, you’re going to have to meet them where they are. EREVs are literally the only way to do that in 2024, which is why I think non-Tesla companies like Rivian and Lucid, which built their entire brands around a singular technology (battery electric vehicles), are going to struggle.
It’s The Best Way For An Automaker To Use One Platform For An EV And A Hybrid
EREVs aren’t just better for the consumer, they’re better for everyone. I’m not even talking about the tremendous potential environmental benefit of EREVs (getting folks out of guzzling pickups to instead drive electric almost every day), I’m talking about the benefit to automakers.
In order to comply with EPA requirements, automakers are going to have to significantly electrify their fleets, but building new EV platforms for that small chunk of the EV market that isn’t Tesla is becoming harder and harder for automakers, who are losing insane amounts of cash. Platform-sharing between automakers is a great lever to help minimize the losses, but a significant reason why the industry is shifting towards EREVs right now is that developing an EV platform for such a limited volume is becoming hard to justify.
Adding a Rex allows an automaker to build a single platform that can appeal to EV buyers and to hybrid buyers. A Rex option allows the automaker to diversify its customer base and significantly reduce the payback time on platform investment. (To be sure, there are some “platforms” out there that are both ICE and EV, but those are significantly more compromised and don’t share as much as an EREV/BEV platform can. BMW is seeing huge benefits of such platform sharing).
It’s An Infrastructure Thing, Too
Yes, it’s about range and price, and it’s about platform optimization, but right now America’s non-Tesla EV infrastructure isn’t good enough, and I say this as someone who drives an EREV daily in California. I just drove a Rivian R1S from LA to Las Vegas, and nearly stranded myself trying to find a charger, since every one at my hotel was broken. What’s more, the charger I used for my trip required me to pay more to charge my vehicle than I would have paid in fuel if I’d driven a Hummer H2. That’s pretty frustrating.
An EREV allows folks who aren’t comfortable with America’s EV infrastructure to still drive electric every day, particularly if they can charge at home. There is an argument to be made that pain points drive infrastructure improvements (we need more curbside charging), so the more people having a hard time charging their cars, the quicker things will change, but I’m not sure forcing consumers to struggle en masse is going to achieve our goal of getting as many people driving electric as quickly as possible.
Two Things Holding Back EREVs: Marketing Challenges And EV Diehards
The road to EREVs is going to be bumpy at first. The biggest issue is marketing. Explaining what this new technology is without the average consumer’s eyes glazing over isn’t going to be easy, and the term “EREV” needs to be out of the equation. It’s a jargon-y term, and it will not resonate with the public. I won’t pretend to know what the answer is exactly, but I’ve come up with a few fun terms. “Long-range plug-in hybrid” is one option. “Gasoline-Assisted EV” is another. The common thread between these two is: I don’t think shying away from the fact that gasoline is involved is the move. I think many people find comfort in gasoline propulsion, and using a name that implies there’s gasoline is a good thing.
“Education is gonna be huge on this truck. We have to educate not just the consumer, we have to educate the sales staff at our dealerships so they understand the benefits of this over the REV,” Carl Lally, Ram’s VP of Global Sales told me at the LA Auto Show. He acknowledged that it’s going to be tricky communicating the advantages that this truck has over a full-EV or a gas truck, but at the same time, he implied that leaning too hard on the name of this new tech isn’t the answer. “Ultimately, I want them to say ‘That’s the best truck,'” he told me, going on to say it can tow 14,000 pounds, it can scoot to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, and oh by the way, you don’t have to fill it up at the gas station.
I buy that. I think marketing these advantages is going to be a key challenge in getting people to drop the cash for the EREV, but I think ultimately it could be successful. In fact, Ram predicts that the Ramcharger will outsell the all-electric Ram REV.
The other challenge that EREVs are seeing is coming from EV proponents, many of whom are anti-ICE. Have a look at this odd reply to my aforementioned tweet:
In what way is suggesting that automakers invest in EREVs anti-EV? I don’t follow. And yet, you’ll find in many comments sections EV fans calling EREVs “the worst of both worlds.” It’s not just commenters; a number of car journalists, who I think may have just gotten too close to EVs to see the forest from the trees, have written anti-PHEV articles over the years, and some try to downplay EREVs’ benefits by talking about their plug-in rate.
Look, the rate at which people plug in EREVs matters in terms of how we hold automakers accountable for CO2 emissions, no question, but it simply does not change the reality that EREVs are a significant environmental benefit. I’d guess that if even a quarter of truck owners plug in every day, trading driving their 15 MPG V8 Ram truck for something that they drive in electric mode 95 percent of the time, that’s a huge environmental benefit. We don’t even have any data to suggest that the plug-in rate will be that low, and in fact, Carl Lally from Ram estimates the figure will be close to 75 percent.
Looking at Chevy Volt and BMW i3 numbers — the only two EREVs ever offered in the U.S. en masse, though, again, the Volt isn’t technically one — doesn’t make a ton of sense because both those vehicles were small cars, whose efficiency benefit when running in EV mode over REX mode wasn’t as big as on a big truck. (In other words, large trucks and SUVs stand to gain the most when run in EV mode, thus incentivizing drivers to do so). Even then, those cars saw really high plug-in rates (The Volt was rumored to be around 90 percent), but those were cars purchased by early adopters, so again, looking at those doesn’t make a ton of sense. It also doesn’t make a ton of sense to look at current PHEVs, because their limited EV-only range means drives have less reason to plug them in, though the International Coalition On Clean Transportation says higher-range plug-in hybrids are plugged in more frequently.
So, we don’t know that EREVs will be plugged in all the time, and I do agree that if very, very few people plug them in, there’s not much of an environmental benefit. But that’s just not going to be the case; EREVs will be a great benefit to our environment whether directly or indirectly (by getting people used to electrified drivetrains, leading them to perhaps buy a BEV later). Luckily, I recently read a piece on InsideEVs by long-time PHEV and EREV skeptic John Voelcker, who for the longest time has been critical of the technology because he doesn’t think people would plug it in enough. His latest piece — titled “Extended-Range EVs Are The Next Big Thing. Will Drivers Plug Them In?” — still has a headline that I think overly downplays EREV’s huge potential for emissions reduction, but the article itself seems more reasonable than other more anti-PHEV pieces and seems to acknowledge that EREVs will likely be plugged in a decent amount of time; that’s a great thing.
I think the “fully EV or nothing” crowd needs to relax and acknowledge that we’re all in this climate change fight together, and EREVs offer a humongous potential to reduce emissions in a way that even BEVs can’t, primarily because EREVs can likely convert more folks over from gas-guzzlers, but also because if the range extenders aren’t used much EREVs can actually be cleaner than BEVs due to their need for fewer battery resources. The marketing thing will also be tricky, and I’m hoping companies like Ram decide to price EREVs lower than BEVs. Carl Lally from Ram said the company is wondering if it should charge more for the Ramcharger than the all-electric Range due to the added utility of the former, or if it should charge less. I’m hoping that — due to EREVs’ theoretical ability to cost the manufacturer less to build than a high-range BEV — some of that savings will go to the consumer. And by golly I hope the Ramcharger reliable, because all eyes are on this truck. It won’t be as reliable as an EV, but a rarely-used gas engine initially developed for prolongued use humming along powering only a generator shouldn’t be that hard to make robust.
EREVs Are Coming And It’s A Great Thing
When batteries are as expensive and heavy as they are today, it just doesn’t make sense in all segments of the industry to use them for edge cases (a major battery improvement/price changes many elements of this whole article, of course). And those edge cases include your family’s annual road trip to Wally World, as well as your bi-annual boat-tow excursion. For those edge cases, it’s logical to save cost and weight and slap in a small range extender, especially while infrastructure remains suboptimal.
America has only ever sold one true, high(ish)-volume gasoline extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) — the BMW i3 — and it was a total flop, selling in quantities of less than 10,000 per year on average, but it was a type of car that doesn’t appeal to Americans (a small city car) and it was a bit ahead of its time. EREVs now have a second chance to become a dominant part of the American market. If I learned anything at this year’s LA Auto Show, it’s that many, many automakers are looking to give EREVs a shot, and whether they succeed is going to depend on three things: pricing, marketing, and execution.
All eyes are on the Ram Ramcharger, which should be first to market. If this thing costs more than the BEV, suffers reliability problems, and comes across to consumers as nothing but a half-baked hybrid with a confusing powertrain, then this experiment could go south. But if the Ramcharger can maximize the potential of EREVs, we may be entering a new era, especially for larger vehicles. I truly believe, especially in the current economic and political climate, we are headed in that direction.
As one of the few defending Toyota—and not as a fanboy—for a multitude of reasons from the general to the Toyota-specific against the opinions of “experts” who had been predicting their doom for not jumping on EVs and now smugly sitting back, I fully agree. Modern ICE sucks and so do modern EVs. For the former, you have too many overworked engines with low operational safety margins requiring expensive fuel trying to move vehicles that are fat pigs at acceleration numbers that would have been performance car territory just a couple decades ago. With their enormous, heavy batteries, EVs are far too expensive and still sometimes inadequate in some areas to meet the requirements of many people while offering the same characterless experience that threatens to make one wonder about the point of most brands’ existence. Put the two technologies together and you have far cheaper, more versatile EV that can reach a lot more people and do a lot more for the environment. Engines would be engineered to run at lower power settings, turning over comfortably at a relatively low rpm range on cheap fuel with higher safety margins as all they have to do is recharge a battery. Not only that, it would open up the opportunity to offer a wider range of cars since they wouldn’t be constrained by the battery cost and the weight that comes from high range demands to sell only the higher volume, higher priced vehicles that restrict them to the boring-as-shit categories for people with more money with very limited availability to people who aren’t well off. This also includes used EVs as people buying on the low end don’t want to risk needing a $20k battery replacement when $500 is hard for them to come by. Whether or not that concern is entirely valid, it exists.
Current EV options are like remind me of the crap we get from Hollywood. Because they seem to think every movie needs to cost $200M to make, to make a profit, it needs to appeal to as wide a global audience as possible, severely limiting the type of movie and its content, so we get the same mediocre shit over and over. I haven’t gone to the movies and years and I’d rather daily a 30+ year old land yacht (as someone who dailies a sports car) than most of the boring crap they make today, never mind actually paying more for it.
EV fanatics—like most green absolutists—are just as bad for the environment as the coal rollers as their ridiculous ignorance of the realities of the world seriously hold back real advancements that can otherwise be made. Perfection being the enemy of the good, as it goes. If they really want to make a difference, they should work on engineering a virus that wipes us out, otherwise they should contend with the realities that exist beyond their own navels to come up with real solutions or at least not stand in the way.
Sorry my comment was meant to be its own comment and not a reply to yours…
As another one of the few defending them, they had the right idea 20+ years ago with the prius and its taken everybody else too long to figure out that hybrids are the way to the future.
I’ve been feeling and saying much the same message. You’ve just done a much better job of organizing our shared feelings on the matter. No notes.
On our farm, we always had these big combination toolbox fuel tanks on every pick up. They were for fueling tractors of course. I think one of the trucks had two 25 gallon tanks, one for gasoline and one for diesel, but most of them had a single 50 gallon tank. It was of course much safer than the main fuel tank, which was inside the cab!
Anyway, it occurs to me that there is probably a business to be had selling range extenders for pick ups that would fit in right where a toolbox would go something with a gas or diesel powered generator a fuel tank and what the hell, why not a toolbox. Make it easy to remove and allow it to plug directly into the charging system of the truck.
Sorry David this is the worst David Tracy article I have ever read. You ignore the fact liberal government officials forced auto manufacturers to design, build and sell EVs that had no buyers. You ignore basic economics that if no one wants it no one will buy it. When the government passes insane regulations the industry has no resources to fight they have to adapt. Fortunately a new administration sees no need to screw over car buyers to promote a over the top delusional agenda. Clean air is good. But trying to force the industry to enact change is ignorant. If the public doesn’t want EVs there is nothing you can do. That is why Hybrid is so successful. The market will adapt but they won’t accept totally ignorant ideas.
I think the problem is that government officials, liberal, or not, didn’t do an Eisenhower and mandate or build charging stations.
Right now it’s like selling cars with no roads and no gas stations. That worked one time when cars were replacing horses and bicycles and driving through foot deep mud and buying gasoline at the apothecary was normal.
The market didn’t want pollution controls. The government made it happen. The market didn’t want safe cars. The government made it happen. The market didn’t want highways the government made it happen.
Cars were sold when roads, as you think of them today, didn’t exist…
Isn’t that what I said?
I also said it worked once, back when cars were only used for local transportation when lack of roads and lack of gas stations was not a deterrent.
I agree to an extent. The problem with BOTH administrations is that they tend to go to extremes. Trying to push everyone to become completely electric when our infrastructure can’t even support it is just not possible. On the other hand, completely ignoring the fact that the environment is deteriorating if we continue down the current path is also not the answer. Hybrids are great because they still rely on fossil fuels while also making a move toward electric, which is the direction we should be heading. We need to approach this gradually, with a plan to wean off fossil fuels and transition to other energy sources over time. The ripping it off like a bandaid approach was never a good idea, and I am actually upset that these manufacturers (especially the luxury ones) think that going fully electric is the answer, it’s not. It feels to me that all they want to do is replicate the success that Tesla did and that will just not happen again.
My biggest problem with society today, in terms of political agendas, is that nuance is completely lost on almost everyone. I can’t stand people who blindly support one political party over the other to an almost cult-like level. It’s one extreme over the other, and extremes, in my opinion, are never good. As a country, we need to be realistic and going fully EV is not realistic or sustainable at this time, but neither is it realistic or sustainable to continue to sit on our hands and maintain the status quo.
Weird, almost like we need a third centrist party that balances both sides. Given the divergence of the parties and path toward the far sides it makes more sense than ever. It would likely still be seen as a throw away vote and therefore ignored.
I don’t ignore either of those in the article (I mention both regulation and economics (of course), both of which Toyota, who did not promise to go full BEV, is subject to as well), nor do I really wanna wade into this “liberal” discussion beyond saying: I’m unsurprised an article about something as politically charged as electric/electrified cars would yield criticism.
This is a contentious topic for sure.
Well to be fair, the climate, vaccines, EVs, and restrooms are only politically charged for approximately half the US population. Everyone else cannot figure out why it’s political.
As is often the case for political issues.
“…liberal government officials forced auto manufacturers to design, build and sell EVs…”
What country do you live in? I think I want to go there. They probably have good EV infrastructure by now.
Norway.
The government *did* require BEVs. The Free Republik of Kommiefornia (in the guise of CARB) has mandated that gasoline powered vehicles not be sold in the state by 2035. Not only California, but 6 other states follow California rules. When the biggest car market in the US and possibly the world mandates something, auto makers are going to be scrambling to comply.
The US required that VW build charging stations with Electrify America as atonement for Dieselgate. Unfortunately, there was no compelling order that they actually function or be maintained in good repair. This makes charging your BEV a crapshoot. The selling point of BEVs is that it costs less to charge than till up a car with gas. Of course in California, with the highest electricity rates in the country, that isn’t always true. The idea of curbside recharging will be a bust. It would require a huge infrastructure effort to get 440VAC to the street side or, settle for mid-range level 2 charging from the streetlight mains.
The whole religion of ”Green” is based on the premise that mankind is causing “global warming”. Yet record high temperatures are breaking records set 100 years ago. So It was hot before. It also ignores the fact that Asia is building coal power plants like there is no tomorrow and the prevailing wind/jet stream is from west to east. I’m not ready to go back to totally uncontrolled vehicles, but I’m not ready to go all-in on BEVs ,either.
You completely outed yourself as a climate denier. That weakens your arguments and makes people doubt everything you saw. “it was hot in the past”??? Really?? WOW!
I haven’t drank the koolaid of the religion (cult) of climate change being anthropogenic. The climate swings from hot to cold. Would you bet your house on whether it will rain 2 weeks from Tuesday? That’s what Grabbin Grewsome and Al Bore and their ilk are asking you to do. They want to wreck the country’s economy (and enrich themselves) on the faint chance that it might be hotter in 50 years than it is now. The world has been in a Goldilocks phase for the last 75 years or so. It’s been hotter in the past and colder in the past. In the mid 60s “climate scientists” were predicting a mini ice age as announced on the cover of Time Magazine. All the US efforts to limit CO2 are a gnat’s fart in a hurricane. One or 2 volcanoes erupting out weigh the reduced emissions of motor transport. It’s like water distribution in California, 15% of the water in the state goes to domestic/residential consumption. When a drought hits, all users are asked to save/not use 10% less. So 1.5% of all water usage is gonna pull us through a drought? It’s a SOP to the sheeple.
HA! learn some actual climate science.
Some dummies don’t understand that there’s a difference between “climate change” and “next week’s weather forecast”.
Of course, he’d already shown he’s not someone to be taken seriously, given his use of the phrase “Free Republik of Kommiefornia”.
What worries me more is the fundamental misunderstanding of science and how science grows and changes like there has been 60 years of science since the 1960s with massive amounts of new information and new data. The idea that science is some fixed idea like religion that doesn’t change over thousands of years is part of the problem.
Agreed. Far too many people, at least here in the US, imagine that their beliefs matter more than facts.
Frequently, their religion of choice encourages that behavior.
I give you Anthony Fauci; no mask, mask, it didn’t matter, 6’ separation, totally pulled outta his ass. Grewsome going out to dinner when he mandated that all restaurants close down. California locking down public schools long after every other state and Europe opened them back up, basically at the behest of the teacher’s union who were collecting their full pay for doing half the work.
The “science” record is not good. Basically, I believe that politicians run for the power, perks and money. The rules are for thee, not me.
there’s only one way to look at a politician,… down.
Wow, you are again sorely misinformed what science is. Start here https://undsci.berkeley.edu/understanding-science-101/
Expecting Volkswagen to maintain EV charging stations or to make them economically viable to drivers is just plain stupid. That’s like expecting automobile manufacturers to build highways or airlines to build airports.
The government should’ve built the EV charging stations. Just like some of the gas stations on the interstates.
I blame the EPA & CARB for mandating VW build charging stations w/o any idea of how they would be maintained. The only thing the failed chargers will be is a tombstone to VW’s Diesel ambitions in the US. What’s worse, the failed chargers will piss off the owners of EVs who were misled into believing they could charge their cars there and discourage EV intenders from buying an EV, because they can’t rely on the chargers being functional.
BTW, I doubt any government agencies in the US have built a gas (petrol) station on a tollway or interstate highway. At the most, they would issue a franchise to an operator who would build and operate an exclusive outlet without competition in a certain stretch of highway.
Yeah, Section 111 of Title 23 of the U.S. Code. prohibits private businesses on the interstates funded by fuel taxes, but the pre-Eisenhower sections are grandfathered in. Hence the state government-owned gasoline stations that are rented to oil companies,
Pensilvania has some lovely ones
https://www.paturnpike.com/traveling/service-plazas
NY owns theirs too! With EV charging stations!
https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/index.cgi
The lovely government-owned service plazas of Ohio, also with EV chargers
https://www.ohioturnpike.org/travelers/service-plazas
Even Florida, the hot(and humid)bed of whatever the fuck that various Florida men are foisting on the people and where woke and retirees go to die has government-owned stations on its socialist turnpike complete with nongendered restrooms and EV chargers.
For some reason, Illinois charges tolls but has no gas stations or restraunts. Same with New Hampshire, just some vending machines.
Connecticut Turnpike has State built gas stations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Turnpike#Services
Deleware has one, and on September 17, 2018, the service plaza was renamed the Biden Welcome Center in honor of Joe Biden, and it has a gas station and EV charging.
Indiana has eight gas stations and EV charging facilities. The state of Maine owns five gas stations. The Kansas Turnpike has six The Kentucky Turnpike had two, but closed them when they widened the road an narrowed the median.
Maine has five full-service plazas operated by the MTA. Oklahoma has a bunch as does Virginia.
I’m probably leaving some out.
Well, this is all new info to me. I drove to New York once, but not on any tollways, so never saw that particular feature. Most of my travels have been west of the Mississippi, where “we don’t cotton to the state competing w/ private businesses”. ????
The notion that they lease it to “contractors” to operate them makes the state ownership of the facilities a little less “big brother” or unfair. Kinda like a situation where a city owns facilities that are commonly thought of as municipal obligations and allows contractors/business to operate them for profit. In that situation, what happened was that the operator took the profits and failed to maintain the facilities, leaving the city with a big bill for deferred maintenance at the end of the contract.
Most (all?) of the stations are staffed and managed by the oil companies, but the state owns and maintains the facilities, and sets the prices. Tow trucks are run by the state and will either tow you to an exit, or to a service area where they have mechanics!!! I haven’t needed repairs on the throughway since about 1990, so they may have stopped providing mechanics.but back then I had been rear ended in a 1962 Ford galaxy and unknown to me there was an exhaust pipe leak that set a rear tire on fire. They fixed the exhaust and tire about 1:00 am Sunday morning.
The contractors don’t even pretend to do any maintenance, that’s done by the state.
Reason magazine, a pretty libertarian rag*, recently ran an editorial advocating service areas with EV charging for the rest of the interstate system. It a pretty interesting read.
https://reason.org/policy-brief/rethinking-interstate-rest-areas/
* I was about to write that Reason magazine is as libertarian as you can get but recently there are some pretty deranged people who call themselves libertarian.
Never thought I’d see someone saying a ~$2 trillion industry has “no resources” to fight the government. Lol. I work in a corporate role at a large Tier 1 and I can promise you, we are doing okay on that front.
I think that pure EV’s will keep getting more popular no matter what. Now that a lot more EV’s can use Tesla Superchargers a big impediment is removed. The Superchargers just work. Anything outside the Tesla ecosystem just plain sucks rotten eggs even in this EV friendly state of New York.
What lower cost EV’s need IMO are LFP batteries that can be charged to 100% and left there for a few days with no ill effects. NCM or NCA batteries can’t do that without risking degradation.
Thank you.
Is English your first language? I don’t get what you are saying.
It actually is not my first language, but perhaps you could try reading it again and letting me know which part specifically you are having trouble comprehending so that I can consider rephrasing it with shorter words for you?
It made complete sense to me.
He’ll get a crayon and some LEGOS out to explain it so you can understand.
Allcattlenohat explained it pretty clearly. The US has a poor charging network for the same reason that we have a poor cell phone network. In their infinite wisdom, the powers that be have decided that competition is best for the nation, rather than mandating a common charger or cellular network. Europe or Korea or Japan are much smaller and heterogeneous, making it easier to require commonality.
The i3 will allow you to drive 70mph on only the range extender. Higher speeds or higher HVAC loads or grades will likely require a speed reduction; the range-extender is a bit undersized, but you can just cut it on early (when the battery SOC is higher) to avoid the issue.
Thank you for the explanation, I appreciate that. Turning it on early is an interesting option, I hadn’t considered that. Is the solution (ideal world) that the range extender is much larger and thus doesn’t limit progress in any way? I don’t really see “the masses” accepting it otherwise, no way is the average dealer sales rep able/willing to explain/sell it to most regular folks, it seems to usually be represented as basically driving an EV and then when you run out of electrons the gasoline engine kicks on and everything proceeds exactly the same except that you are now burning gasoline to recharge the battery (or drive the wheels depending on the implementation). You’re the first person I’ve actually seen clearly mention that the range extender does in fact cause limitations.
I kind of assume (perhaps incorrectly) that if you were crossing Texas at 80-90mph in a pickup with a trailer as the locals are wont to do and if it was a RAM REV then perhaps switching to the engine would cause a restriction in speed or towing capability that isn’t there when on the EV battery alone? I believe the RAM REV basically uses a Pentastar 3.6 to run at a steady RPM to recharge the battery most efficiently, but am unsure of where the crossover point lies between charge usage vs charge replenishment (unless it just switches to direct Pentastar power but then you’d be limited to whatever a Pentastar can do while lugging a battery around along with the trailer.)
I have an electric mini. I like it a lot.
I have a plug-in minivan. I like it a lot.
I have a gas mini. I like it a lot.
Profound. lol
🙂 you’ll be pleased to know that the plug in gets driven far more than the others
I think a much bigger issue than shareholders is *governments* making all sorts of noise about banning new ICE cars completely in quite short timelines. It probably won’t happen in the US, but you can bet the Europeans will go through with it. They are far more accepting of being told what is good for them than ‘Muricans.
But as to EREVs – why would I want to pay for even 240 miles of EV range? The average commute is around 42 miles a day supposedly. I only need about 30 miles of range to do 90%+ of my trips – and 100% of my inefficient trips (aka those where the ICE barely gets warmed up). So I don’t get the point of a still heavy and expensive battery, even if it isn’t AS heavy and AS expensive. I want a reasonably small and efficient ICE (an Atkinson cycle four is CHEAP these days), let it use the electric motor for boost if necessary, and 30 miles of EV-only range at around town speeds. If I am on the highway, the ICE can do it’s thing with all the usual energy recovery bonuses of a hybrid.
Toyota gets this, even if the *Toyota Tax* on their PHEVs is steep.
Actually that 42 miles is the average annual mileage/365 so including all days and all trips, meaning that the average commute is less than that. So yeah ~40 miles of EV range is sufficient for the majority of the population.
I googled “average commute” and that is what it came up with as the most common answer for commuting to work in the United States. But whatever, I very much agree that 40 miles is plenty, and overkill for many.
I suspect the answer is going to vary widely from years past simply because the rise of work-from-home probably meant that there were a lot of long-commuters who suddenly didn’t anymore, and the “get your ass back to the office” mandates have screwed a lot of people who moved further from work. So who the Hell really knows what it is at this point.
But for sure, as one who has had no commute for 18 years, the best commute is NONE, and governments should be incentivizing companies to allow it as widely as practical. But since billionaire assholes who only have to go to the office if they feel like it have bought the government, good luck with that.
For the last 30 years my job required that I not only be there, but go to job sites to inspect work. My office truck could well have been a 60 mile range electric, but my personal commute was 35mi each way. So, a 100 mile range would have been the least I would have accepted.
Different horses for different courses, there is no such thing as “one size fits all”.
But did you actually need a truck? Would a 60mpg modestly powered ICE hybrid, perhaps in van form have worked? How fast do you actually need to go? Assuming you weren’t hauling Bobcats between sites.
Imagine if we had put the engineering thought energy that has given us Toyota Camry commutermobiles as fast as ’80s Porsches into making them have 80’s commutermobile performance with massively increased efficiency instead? Pretty sure nobody died of old age on their commute because their Iron Duke powered Buick Century was so slow.
The District bought the truck, and I used it to haul pipe & tools. My commuters were a series of Hondas and I retired 6 yrs ago.
I agree with all of this and will take this opportunity to continue to beat the drum of using EREVs as mobile heat and power generators, especially extended range electric RVs. The range extender will be much more efficient than a small generator and will still put out plenty of heat for a small house at least.
Also: Why no mention of Nissan’s ePOWER system and their plans for EREVs?
https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY/ARCHIVE/E_POWER/
https://www.motortrend.com/news/nissan-erev-phev-ev-future-car-suv-plans/
Most of my driving is in the 2 miles to 40 miles a day range. A couple of weeks ago, I made an unplanned 408 mile round trip (Front brake calipers for a1973 Dodge D100 are currently unobtainium – I found a right in Tucson, AZ and a left in Apache Junction, AZ). A range extender would be great for my usage. A PHEV would also work. Hunting for charging stations is a non-starter…
A few months ago, my 2017 Subaru Forester needed another lower ball joint. Found out on this website (a tip of the hat to Matt Hardigree) that this was a known problem. I immediately went to the KBB website, got 3 offers and sold it the next morning (like most Autopians, we have fun backup vehicles).
I’m 80 years old, still do most of my vehicle maintenance. The future holds having to send my vehicles out for maintenance. Buying a car in the big city (Tucson) involves a 170 round trip for service. So I had to buy a car that could be serviced locally. I have a very low opinion of the local Ford, GM, Stellantis (ask your Doctor is Stellantis is right for you), Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, NAPA and paint stores. The only option was Toyota (had great luck sourcing used cars for family members from them). I considered a hybrid RAV4, it was going to many months out. We ordered a RAV4, to our specifications (we did not want a moon roof, roof rack, and the higher trim levels). It was less than 2 months out.
Thank you for hanging out with us! I hope this fiery passion for cars remains strong when I’m 80.
Thanks for the kind words. At the moment, the “fiery passion” got an ice water soaking. My old vehicles contain lots of modifications – Resulting in vehicles that can not be sent out for repair.
Tuesday, a grandchild child ran my diesel truck out of fuel. It is a 1986 Ford F150 with a Cummins 4bt conversion and a 5-speed (OD) manual transmission swap. The local PD had it towed to the impound lot, then they paid an additional amount to get it towed out to my shop.
Wednesday, took the customized 1962 Volvo PV544 (looks like a shrunken 1946 Ford 2 door sedan) out for a 250 mile ride (we still have mice weather in SE AZ). Wanted to test the recent 5 speed (OD) manual transmission swap. Had a great trip and got to see some old friends. OD and cruise control worked great on I-10.
Thursday, Started troubleshooting the Ford. Then drove said Volvo to town for parts. On the way home, suddenly developed a severe shake in the drive line. Arrived home at under 30 MPH…
Today, almost finished with the repair. Pumps replaced and injectors bled – it runs.
Break time is over, the truck has to come off jack stands.
Tomorrow, evaluate the Volvo – I “think” the upper link bushings failed on the rear end. I have replacement polyurethane on the shelf – It is one of those “deferred maintenance” issues <shrug>…
I smell of diesel fuel – Much better than smelling of 90W gear oil <wink>.
Russ
A Cummins swapped F-150?! Amazing!
Ok Russ, I am imploring you to sign up for Readers Rides without further delay. Tracy, are you reading this?
After replacing that bushing and it still vibrates, check the driveshaft u-joints. I had a PV444 that didn’t vibrate and the link bushing was gone. (Young and dumb, no longer young).
Vibration found – Operator-Head-Space-Assembly-Error – Four (4) bolt driveshaft flange had only two (2) loose bolts <sigh>.
Yeesh! Good job you investigated & found that! It could have been ugly to have that let go. It also makes the car more comfortable to drive. 😉
BEVs will come when it just doesn’t make sense to have the complexity of the engine. Engine’s will get smaller and smaller as the batteries they power become more and more effcient.
The drivetrain of today is PHEV or EREV as that is the best use of dividing up available battery supplies to reduce emissions.
Again just stop with the quoting of Volker who is anti anything but pure EVs. Data does exist on how frequently PHEV owners plug them in, no matter what he preaches.
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/gb/en/news/2021/08/05/new-kuga-plug-in-hybrid-data-shows-nearly-half-of-mileage-uses-e.html
Almost 90% of drive days included a charging event.
https://www.torquenews.com/1083/plug-hybrid-electric-vehicle-owners-plug-them-most-days-heres-how-we-know
Note the number of “never” responses to their poll. 2% for the Rav-4 Prime and Clarity. The Prius Prime it is at 6% which I find surprising vs the RAV-4 Prime.
https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips
Slightly over 70% of daily trips are under 10 miles, so even the “pathetic” Wrangler’s 22 EV miles would suffice for many commuters. Only 13% of trips are more than 20 miles so many PHEVs would cover two of those trips solely on externally charged battery power.
Batteries capable of more than 40-50mi range would just end up under utilized for the vast majority of consumers.
Then you have the inherent inefficiency of how EREVs are designed. There are losses every step of the way between the crank and wheels, that are much larger in an EREV that transmits all that power electrically, than in a PHEV that transmits much of its power mechanically. They are also much more complex with a far higher part count than a good PHEV. In a good PHEV (Toyota, Ford, and the few Hondas) the starter/generator and traction motor/generator share a single case, lubrication and cooling system. They also use a single inverter with components for both MGs again sharing a single cooling system reducing the transmission losses between the generator and motor. The fact that all of those items are combined makes packaging much easier and cheaper.
EREVs truly are the worst of both worlds. A large, heavy, expensive battery and a completely separate generator system for a lot more complexity and packaging problems. Meanwhile a good PHEV only needs a larger battery and an electric lube pump vs the Hybrid version of the same vehicle.
I do think that people may be more likely to plug in an EREV than a PHEV but much of that is due to the fact that they will be inefficient in ICE operation and the fact that people had to pay a lot extra for them vs a PHEV.
Chrysler has done more to damage the name of PHEVs than GM did to damage Diesels. The worst reliability and sales people who told many buyers that you never need to plug it in, so they could move the only metal they had on the lot. So at least we can be thankful that it appears Ram will be the first out of the gate with a mass market EREV. It should sour most people on the prospect and generate a fair number of articles on how EREVs are the least reliable vehicles just like they did with PHEVs and get terrible MPG in pure ICE operation.
Finally it is time to retire the term “Range anxiety”. Yes, that was true for early EVs with small ranges and for those models who’s range meter were deemed Guess-O-Meter since they relied solely on the EPA rating to determine the miles remaining. Current good EV’s use that particular vehicle’s consumption figures to feed the miles remaining.
What you experienced in your Rivian road trip was charge anxiety. I know when I did a long road trip in an EV this fall that is what we experienced. It was never a question of if we would make it to the charger, we always rolled up to a charger with the SOC/miles remaining almost exactly as what was predicted. The questions were: Will there be a line when we get there? and Will the charger that is now reporting as working stop working between now and the time we will get there whether it is due to an internal failure, power outage or the fact that someone cut the cable to sell for scrap. The apps for most if not all EV charging companies will tell you what is currently available at a given location and if they are out of service or whatever reason.
EREVs — particularly in rear-drive truck and SUV applications — are much mechanically simpler than conventional PHEVs, and it’s not even close. What’s more, they offer huge packaging advantages over PHEV equivalents (how many rear-engine PHEVs do you see out there? Zero).
These packaging advantages will allow BEV/EREV platform sharing in a way that modern PHEVs simply don’t. There’s a reason automakers are moving to EREV now, and I’m excited to see how consumers respond. Based on initial Scout Data, things are looking good!
With that said: If your main point is that allowing the ICE to power the wheels directly when the battery is depleted through something like an ECVT offers efficiency gains over going through a generator, I buy that.
Truth is, Scoutdude, I don’t care exactly how this gets done, I just want high-range PHEV (whether EREVs or not) that don’t add too much mechanical complexity over a BEV, and that ideally allow automakers to get more out of their BEV platforms that they’re losing beaucoup bucks on.
It’s gonna be great.
“EREVs — particularly in rear-drive truck and SUV applications — are much mechanically simpler than conventional PHEVs, and it’s not even close. What’s more, they offer huge packaging advantages over PHEV equivalents (how many rear-engine PHEVs do you see out there? Zero).”
It does depend on the application of course and more so on the implementation. Yes those vehicles that still use a conventional umpteen speed transmission are significantly more complex mechanically than the two future EREVs we have some info on. That does not mean that all have to be that way. Look at the Toyota/Ford systems. A simple planetary gear set is the only additional spinny piece vs a dedicated generator and traction motor. However putting them all together in one case and having one inverter is far less complex than two entirely separate systems, it is not even close. Then you have the Honda system where the only extra mechanical bit is a dog clutch between the Starter/Gen and the Traction Motor/Gen. Again with the far simpler shared case and inverter.
Putting the engine in the rear is a minus, not a plus, how many rear engine vehicles are currently sold? How many of those are mainstream vehicles. There is a reason that the engine goes in the front because packaging is easier and keeping all those spinny bits together is far simpler.
“Truth is, Scoutdude, I don’t care exactly how this gets done, I just want high-range PHEV (whether EREVs or not) that don’t add too much mechanical complexity over a BEV. I think we’re aligned on that front.”
Yet you keep insisting that PHEVs are not the way to go because their range is “Pathetic” and won’t do 90-95% of people’s total miles. Yet data shows that many existing PHEVs are able to cover a large percentage of people’s daily use and they would only need the ICE for the occasional longer trip.
I think it is far better to put 3 people in a 40-50mi range PHEV than putting 1 person in a 150 mi range EREV. Even if the PHEVs only do 50% of the total use on externally charged battery power, that would make a bigger dent in total fuel consumption than 1 EREV doing 90%. 15k x 50% x 3 = 22.5k EV miles. 15k x 90% x 1 = 13.5k EV miles.
We will have to see what the Ramcharger and Scout Harvester get here but the other potential problem, one on full display in your Rex is a battery to gas tank ratio. We will have to see what size tanks they will have, but I’m afraid many EREVs will have a small tank, which means either much more frequent stops of gas on road trips or stopping for gas and a charge to gain a reasonable range. That is the whole point of a PHEV for most people, road trips with normal gas stops and no charging anxiety, because the point is you charge them only at home or work if you’ve got free charging available there.
“Yet you keep insisting that PHEVs are not the way to go because their range is ‘Pathetic’ and won’t do 90-95% of people’s total miles. Yet data shows that many existing PHEVs are able to cover a large percentage of people’s daily use and they would only need the ICE for the occasional longer trip.”
You’re not wrong on this front, but it simply doesn’t matter to the consumer. Data shows that higher-range PHEVs get plugged in more, and that makes sense: If you can only do 25 miles electric, then to a consumer it’s a gas car with an electric bonus. What we need are EVs with a gas bonus.
Again, I’m not calling for the end of PHEVs, I’m saying EREVs make a ton of sense in the context of automakers losing bundles on BEV platforms. And EREVs are significantly less complex than current PHEVs we’re seeing in rear-drive applications, and that’s a big deal.
(Also, re: rear engines: the advantage of the rear engine in a PHEV truck application would you don’t need a driveshaft/exhaust that takes up precious packaging volume; modern front-engine, rear-drive PHEVs are definitely suboptimal from a packaging standpoint relative to EREVs).
I never worry whether my 20-mile EV range of my PHEV is “sufficient” for any trip. The car’s 500-mile combined range will always be sufficient. And I don’t care a bit about how many trips I complete without lighting up the ICE. An additional 10 or 20 miles in a 40-mpg hybrid mode doesn’t cost much. And it’s the total gas savings over the long run that matter to my budget, and to the environment I’ve grown rather fond of. My Ford’s gotten 65 mpg lifetime, and that’s great, by my reckoning.
It really is.
I’d love to see that data, and how many of those “low range” PHEVs that don’t get plugged in are of the Chrysler variety where that was the choice on the lot, never mind they live in an apartment/condo with no ability to charge at home or work.
I know a number of people who have/had Ford Energi vehicles with less than 20mi of range that plugged them in whenever they got home and often would get more than 20mi of EV range during a day thanks to mid-day charging. As John mentioned he has averaged 65mpg in his C-max. That means he is doing just under 40% of his driving with externally charged battery power, with a tiny little battery. It also shows the laws of diminishing returns on battery size.
When we had a C-Max Energi our lifetime average was 60 mpg or 33% EV, now with a PHEV Escape with just about twice the range and the same gas only MPG, our lifetime is 80 mpg. which means we have done about 50% of our driving on externally charged battery power. Both vehicles were used with similar day to day use and several road trips from 200-2000+ miles. So 100% more battery for 50% increase in number of EV miles. Looking at it the other way that was a 100% increase in battery size for a 25% reduction in the amount of gas burned.
Just look at the data in the link 81% of trips are less than 15mi. 87% are less than 20mi while only 7% are more than 30mi. That means the return on battery size, expressed as % reduction of gas driven miles, only gets worse the larger you go.
The reality of that rear engine in a EREV is poor packaging. Look again at the Scout you ordered and how high of a floor it has to leave room for the Harvester. It also means you can’t stow a spare under there, if you have to hang the spare off of the back of the vehicle or stick it in the bed you have horrible packaging. Inside/under the vehicle is the best location for it for 95% of the people who use an SUV for soccer/hockey/dance/school/grocery runs and open the back on a regular basis. Preferably with the push of a button from the driver’s seat.
I’m not aware of too many RWD PHEVs but the ones I know of so far are cases where they mainly started as compliance cars with equipment forced into a place where it was never designed to fit. Now the F-150 Hybrid was originally designed to also be available as a PHEV and it would not require any packaging changes, there is already room for a larger battery along side the driveshaft opposite the gas tank. Yes it would have an umpteen speed transmission which is more complex. On the other hand developing the Lightning’s unique chassis, batteries and drive units was far more expensive and time consuming, than just developing a larger battery and putting it into production.
I agree that EREVs could help amortize the BEV platforms that companies have invested a lot of money in. However I’m not a proponent of throwing good money after bad.
The Toyota hybrid drive transmission is not a multi speed nightmare. It is more like a fancy differential ( or maybe an integrater ?) and all the gear ratios are fixed.
Did you read the full comment?
“Look at the Toyota/Ford systems. A simple planetary gear set is the only additional spinny piece vs a dedicated generator and traction motor.”
The gear ratio in a power split style hybrid, like the Toyota and Ford systems, is continuously variable, hence the use of the eCVT moniker. By selecting the amount of torque that is harvested by the starter generator the gear ratio between the engine and wheels can be varied.
Batteries capable of more than 40-50mi range would just end up under utilized for the vast majority of consumers.
ICE capable of much more than 150 HP just end up under utilized for the vast majority of consumers too.
The RAMcharger is a perfect example of how ridiculous this concept is.
First you have a V6 engine that is sufficient to power the entire vehicle but only 3/4 capable of doing trucky things like towing. Then you add a heavy battery that could do everything but only has 3/4 of the range you really want because it is strapped into a big heavy truck.
So what have you got? A truck that uses 1.5x the resources to provide only 1x the capability (compared to a plain old RAM truck). It doesn’t matter what marketing wants, the cost of the truck is going to be high and it will not be cost competitive to an ICE truck, even with a $7500 donation from the taxpayers.
If EV mandates are relaxed this platypus is an endangered species.
I’d rather a 500 pound, $5000 ICE I rarely use over a 1,500 pound, $12,000 battery I rarely use. (You’re actually using fewer precious resources by trading that 100kWh worth of battery for an aluminum ICE+ancillaries).
Beyond cost and weight, it’s about mass-palatability and infrastructure (which are related). I do have concerns that Ram will price it too high, though.
RAM will price it too high – because they have to. Pricing is based on what the market will bear and cost to manufacture. In the case of the RAMcharger, I don’t see any way those two curves intersect.
You are assuming that EVs are an obvious good thing and that manufacturers will be forced to build them due to government regulations. If you are correct, then EREVs might be a compromise solution that will allow the manufacturers to continue selling cars but you are swimming upstream and the average consumer/voter is not going to like it. I think you have not adjusted your worldview based on recent elections, both here and across the world. People want cheap stuff and they don’t care if they kill the planet to get it.
If EV / MPG mandates are rolled back which is a likely scenario in the medium term, EREVs (and EVs) will be uncompetitive against ICE vehicles in the large vehicle segment for quite some time. As you pointed out, the average consumer is concerned about range, price, and capability. EREVs match (or exceed) ICE range but lose out on the other two instead of finding the sweet spot for all 3 factors.
In developed countries, I believe EVs are inevitable and I look forward to a future with lower cost batteries where our electricity is generated cleanly and distributed widely. Until then, force fitting solutions like EREVs is unproductive.
The great majority of trucks on the road aren’t doing trucky things like towing. It’s mostly a fashion statement
I overheard some kids at the Costco complaining about having to share the back seat with all the stuff the parents bought because it would blow out of the bed on the freeway. People need trucks to do trucky things about as much as people need to have splitters, diffusers, and fake brake cooling ducts on their cars.
The really stupid thing is using trucks like cars. If you are using a truck like a truck you are either using it a lot, and operating cost per mile is the primary consideration. Otherwise, you are using it occasionally, where the cost to purchase, depreciation and where to park it are the primary considerations. The rest of the time it’s a crummy car.
But enough about trucks. Why is this all about trucks? And oversized trucks at that? If I need to do truck stuff I’l get some used piece of shit to take stuff to the dump, and haul stuff that doesn’t fit in the car, maybe something from this century, but really for those uses probably not. A f100 with the 300 six and three on the tree would be ideal. Or a Hilux, those were great up until the early 2000s, then they sort of lost track of the point.
A car large enough so that the mechanical and electrical bits aren’t so crammed together that they are both hard to service but small enough to not need a lot of batteries and the auxiliary power unit wouldn’t be huge. Weight begets weight and lightness begets lightness.
No. I can’t see a huge market for EREVs. The engineers behind EREVs must have read ultimate engineer Colin Chapman’s statement, “Add lightness,” and decided he was wrong.
Why do I or does anyone need to buy a full sized gas (or diesel) engine in addition to an electric powertrain? Why do they need an IC engine at all?
EVs are useful. Plug in hybrids are useful. Extended range EVs are not very useful either in lightweight or heavy weight configurations. That’s my take.
Full disclosure, I own an EV with a range of 220 to 250 miles. Because I plug it in every day, and almost never drive more than 120 miles at a time, I can’t even get below 50 percent charge to improve battery life. (Cycling from low to high charge is supposed to help.) And I’m glad that’s the case because I feel comfortable that I can always make it home (to charge) with a 100 mile buffer. Cross country trips are also fine because I don’t usually go more than 160 miles in a stretch. For drivers who need more range, it’s available. I’m sure my take on EVs is similar for other satisfied owners.
I can see where a plug in hybrid would be useful because the good economy and quick fueling of IC power is great for drivers who drive relatively long distance regularly.
I can also see why light weight extended range EVs like the BMW i3 are not very usable (not a personal attack Mr. Tracy, just my observation, counter point and the EV Koolaid I’ve consumed.) A light weight extended range EV is not useable because it doesn’t have enough range to be comfortable in almost any American driving profile. And it’s tiny IC powerplant is just a bandaid that wouldn’t be necessary with more battery capacity. Range anxiety is only a thing when you don’t have enough buffer to get to the next fueling station. And with only 124 miles maximum range in an i3, there is no room for comfort – except for running the needlessly complex gas motor/transmission/electronics etc. Then you still have to refuel with gas AND electrons.
A 1,000 mile range EREV is just silly. Consumers are paying for needless complexity. I don’t know why long range EREVs are a thing in China. Status maybe? Lack of charging and fuel stations? It doesn’t make sense.
If I were to look into the future, I’d place a bet on electrified roadways – which would let EVs carry fewer batteries. But that’s a way off.
You are the perfect example of why there is no “one size fits all” solution here. Your car absolutely would not work for me without a level of compromise I am completely unwilling to make. I DO drive long distances regularly, and I rarely stop more often than every 300-400 miles. I have places to be, when I am going between my widely spread homes I am on a mission.
But on the other hand, I have NO daily commute at all, and most of my trips (but nowhere near most of my miles driven) are within 5 miles of my house. So for me, either keeping the paid for ICE cars I have, or if I need a new car for some bizarre reason, a PHEV is ideal.
Different horses for different courses.
Sort term future might look like that. The long term stuff might be oxcarts all we know :D.
I’m looking forward to Mazda’s rotary powered range extender as the return of the Wankel. I also thought the BMW Motorcycles sourced engine in the i3 was cool. Cramming thousands of pounds, and thousands of dollars worth of battery in car driven less than 100 miles per day seems foolish. I thought a plug in hybrid or range extender was the right choice years ago. While it adds complexity, it also adds flexibility.
I wonder if someone will make a gas turbine range extender. Since it operates Ata steady state and can burn almost anything a small one might be an option and then your car sounds like a plane
I have a better suggestion: Take a current Prius engine, lop off two cylinders and you’ve got a quiet, clean, reliable, compact 1L, 75 HP Range Extender. The resources needed to do that are trivial compared to the quixotic task of developing a rotary or gas turbine to do the same.
You also end up with an engine that is rough as a cob and sounds like ass.
Why would it be any louder than in a Prius? Prius engines are as quiet as it gets. Its not hooked up to the wheels anyway.
As to roughness if anyone can make an engine smooth it’s Toyota. They’d also have the generator to use as a dampening flywheel.
Because an inline twin in inherently horribly unbalanced. And anything you add to make it smoother adds weight, complexity, and cost. A boxer twin is much better, but then it’s not half of a Prius engine.
If an inline twin was good enough for BMWs i3 even though they also make their own boxer twins it’s good enough here too.
The Prius engine already has balance shafts designed in. Modify them for a twin. Those and the mass of the generator to dampen vibrations should be plenty smooth enough.
No, it won’t be. I’m not saying you couldn’t make a marginally acceptable twin ala the BMW – but it would be a clean-sheet design, not half of a Prius motor. And then you are back to the cost issue, at which point just use the existing smaller Atkinson four that was in the Prius C, or any number of small fours Toyota makes for other markets. The inline twin in the BMW *works*, but nobody loved hearing or feeling it run either. Our local rust fanatic excepted, evidently. And it only works in the i3 because that thing was tiny and light for an EV – and the performance in range-extending mode was still *awful*. A realistic EREV is going to need more than that.
There is no reason a Prius engine could not be the basis of an inline twin. Sure there would take some work but most of the components should work right out of the box. And yes inline twins CAN be smooth enough. For example Top Gear had plenty of nice things to say about the FIAT I2 Twin Air:
“A twin! In a 500! To be precise, it’s an inline two, displacing 875cc and developing, in the turbocharged form seen here, 84bhp – a naturally aspirated 64bhp and warmer 104bhp turbo version will follow. With Fiat’s MultiAir timing and stop-start tech, the twin 500 will return a claimed 69.9mpg and emit just 95g/km of CO2: cleaner than a Polo BlueMotion, cleaner than a Honda Insight.
Enough numbers. You want to know how it sounds. If you’ve got the manically popping, staccatoed stutter of an old-school British bike in your head… sorry. Aside from a puttering noise below about 1,500rpm, the TwinAir 500 isn’t hugely engaging in the ear department: largely hushed, a bit droney at high revs, but no worse than the 500’s existing 4cyl petrol.
The TwinAir is, for such a dinky engine, amazingly refined and smooth. If you’ve had the misfortune to drive the three-cylinder Corsa from the mid-Nineties, you’ll know how binary few-cylindered engines can be. The TwinAir, though, is thoroughly linear in its responses, picking up easily from low revs and delivering a nice spread of power.”
https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/fiat/500/09-twinair-105-lounge-3dr/road-test
A fixed RPM inline twin could be even smoother and more refined. Slicing a Prius engine in half would be far easier than developing a rotary or gas turbine to match the Prius thermal efficiency.
Obviously, you know it all, so Toyota should get right on hiring you to engineer the twin-cylinder range extenders that they aren’t going to make.
I’ve actually driven a Euro 500 with the TwinAir, not just read reviews of it – amazingly smooth are NOT two words I would use to describe that engine, but you do you. My two words would be rough and gutless. I guess amazingly smooth for a twin, but that is being the prettiest gal in the leper colony.
Triples are also inherently terrible at low revs, though they do smooth out as the revs climb. A few companies have decided that the inherent compromise is worth it to make a smaller engine with the “ideal” 500cc per cylinder displacement and smaller physical size, notably BMW, but by the time you do all the tech to make them reasonably smooth you aren’t saving any money over a four, and they don’t really save much fuel either.
My words? Those words came from Top Gear, which I shouldn’t have to explain to you is one of the world’s most popular car magazines written by a professional car critics who have driven far more cars than you and I combined. I even provided a link. If you had bothered to look over that chip on your shoulder maybe you’d have seen it. Or not, that chip is massive.
Toyota should hire me. I’d cancel all company funds investing in the black hole of hydrogen and replace the HFC of the current Mirai with the exact 2 cyl Prius drive train we are discussing here, replace two of the hydrogen tanks with batteries and the third with a gas tank to make an AWD PHEV sedan or keep that last high pressure tank and fill it with CNG instead.
They are entitled to their opinion, as I am entitled to mine.
Good luck with that, not that I disagree about hydrogen being a waste of time.
Yes you are.
Let’s face it, an inline 4 is just 2 twins put together, with 2X the number of pistons stopping and starting at the same time. I’m pretty sure the existing balance shaft can be jiggered to smooth things out adequately. More than a few 2 cyl motorcycles have a 180° crankshaft and sound decent. In fact, I loved the sound of abounds 305 CL 77 spinning at 9,000 rpm, but that’s just me. In REX mode an 800cc twin would be nearly silent and quite smooth.
Finally a believer! Thank you.
It did occur to me though that four cylinders do have the advantage of greater DOD. That could allow the individual pistons to be run at peak efficiency (presumably across a very narrow RPM band) but through a greater range of load.
“But where’s the fun in that?”
In the savings, obviously.
Chrysler turbine car would like a word. Steady state operation might make it slightly more economical, but gasoline is about the cheapest liquid fuel you can get, so its omnivorest appetite likely won’t save any money. I can’t imagine that themes Fed or states would pass up taxing any fuel seeing wide usage for vehicular transportation.
In my experience, the non-Tesla infrastructure portion of the EV problem is getting worse.
When I went to an Electrify America station two years ago with our Mach E, it worked 99% of the time and the stalls weren’t full of other cars. A few days ago I went to my local EA station and it kept giving me a fault (all of the other stations were full, which is now quite common). After four unsuccessful attempts, I unplugged in disgust, drove a couple miles to a new Tesla station, plugged in with the free adapter Ford sent me and it worked flawlessly.
That’s a long-winded way of saying I think I agree with DT on the way forward.
Infrastructure is the crux of this issue, one way or another.
I’ve owned a Prius since 2006 and for my 100 daily commute it was great. I work from home now. My spouse bought a Rav4 PHEV and we keep track of the EV range and for our around-town uses, it lasts for several days. We have own house so we plug it in to just 120v when the range gets low. We travel out of EV range once a month or so, and having the hybrid gas gets us to our destination, where we can plug in again to 120v for local driving. When I drive the Prius, most of the time, I could be using the EV range of the Rav4.
We are serious about getting another camper (spent a year on the road in our ’76 VW camper, and had a Vanagon Westfalia for 16 years after rolling the ’76).
But what we want is an EREV sprinter-scale camper. I would daily EV it around town instead of the Prius and just plug in at home. Camping trips with an EREV would allow for power available when boodocking which was always a challenge when we were just using a 12v deep cycle as our power source.
My wife’s “gateway drug” into EV ownership was a lease return ’17 Volt. Got it for $17,500 and sold it 3 years later for $16,000 with double the miles. The 52 miles of electric range was just enough to get her to work and back, and the gas engine was always there if she needed to go farther. Once she got over the initial hesitation she moved to full EV. The Volt was a great little car and I look forward to seeing potential development of EREVs, assuming they can improve dependability (recent report stated that PHEVs with related tech had lowest reliability compared to full EV, hybrid, or ICE vehicles).
“(recent report stated that PHEVs with related tech had lowest reliability compared to full EV, hybrid, or ICE vehicles).” That is unfortunately heavily influenced by the best selling PHEV the Jeep Wrangler and its other stable mates. So yeah Chrysler’s going Chrysler and be problematic.
Meanwhile the Toyota Prime vehicles are just as reliable as their standard hybrids which time and time again are the some of the most reliable vehicles period. So yeah look at the dependability of the specific vehicle(s) you are interested in, not what some generic report says.
What you’re telling me is that the future is World War II submarine technology with gas engines instead of diesel. Ok. Got it.
Not quite. WW2 subs used lead acid batteries.
Close enough.
In the same way a WW2 P38 Lightning is close enough to a modern F35 Lightning…
Yep. They both fly through the air and shoot stuff.
That reasoning makes you close enough to a flatworm. Or a rock.
I’m so hurt.
Not.
God it’s like talking to a wall.
(Well close enough to one anyway.) :p
And yet you keep trying.
(As a complete aside, I’m annoyed that they called the F-35 the Lightning II. The OG P-38 Lightning was absolute mad science, a twin-engine, twin-boom high altitude interceptor with a nose-mounted death ray of concentrated lead. The F-35 is “we have F-16 replacement at home.” :/ )
Also Harrier II replacement
Also true!
Nope, sorry, outside the US in Europe in particular, it is governments pushing full EV, not customers.
And governments have the figures for what happened with plug-in hybrids, when they gave incentives for them to be bought as company cars.
Petrol (gas) consumption went up, with related rises in CO2, especially when compared to modern diesels which most fleets ran (and run). Not by a little amount, up by 10% to 15%.
Why?
Because all the Walter Mitties who drove the company cars could not be arsed to plug them in to recharge the batteries.
And I bet the same will happen with EREVs. Drivers will prefer to flog a tiny lawnmower engine to death rather than plug in the the electric part of the car.
It is probably because pumping gas, even if it is just holding a hose and pulling a trigger, is more active than plugging a car into the grid.
Or because people are thick.
So Mr diesel scandal repenti VW, might like it, and his well scrubbed customers might say the want it, the government knows they are lying, and imposes full battery as the only way forward.
The problem wasn’t because they couldn’t be arsed to plug them it, it was because there was no charging available at work and if they plug them in at home it would be money out of their pocket since gas was “free” with the company credit card.
Nope, all they had to do was drive to wall box chargers. These were company cars!
The ICCT has covered this topic of company-car PHEVs. It ultimately believes that longer-range PHEVs (which get plugged in much more than short-range ones, especially ones used as long-distance company cars purchased for tax reasons) offer huge potential. From ICCT:
I discuss more here.
“Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step.” Also, every drive of a hundred miles begins with the first 20 miles, and if that’s done consistently in EV, the savings really add up.
Problem is, it’s hard to measure PHEV benefits during a single EPA lab test or a two-day press test availability. There you drive as much as you can for a short time. That’s the opposite of how an average car is driven, only an hour a day. Therefore, every test of my PHEV Ford underestimated my real-world fuel efficiency by a LOT.
So I did an experimental long-term test. My wife and I drove two C-Maxes exclusively for about 50,000 miles each. The Hybrid recorded 38 mpgs; the Energi PHEV still maintains a 65mpg lifetime average. I wouldn’t have believed that, either, until I saw it with my own eyes.
Will EREVs suffer from this same negative testing bias? We’ll see.
It’s going to be tricky.
That is the thing, the potential is there. But it does not translate to real life because in order for the potential to be realised, people have to plug them in regularly. And they do not.
It is not new tech, they have been sold with great subsidies for a decade, with the promise of 50 km battery range, more than most people use every day, blah blah.
Other than designing some killer switch which automatically locks miscreants who do not charge in the boot for two days, or something, there seems no way past this dilema.
This is a totally overblown issue, and reciting it only has the potential to harm the environment more. The idea that zero people will plug in their EREVs is based on zero evidence. None.
It is not overblown. It is the basis for government subsidies in France designed to cut CO2.
Small non-plug in hybrids like the Toyota Yaris, have been very successful in bringing consumption of gas engines down to modern diesel levels. (5 litres per 100 km in real life).
And outside work settings, with people who care about the environment (and their wallets) plug in hybrids might work as they say they do on the packet. But the “mass experiment” of trying to use them to reduce CO2 of company cars failed.
And unfortunately that failure will stick with extended range EVs too.
Yeah which takes (a lot) of time out of their day since most PHEVs only have a 3.3kW onboard charger and none of those early ones had DCFC capability.
My 2017 Ford needs just 4-5 hours to recharge on 110v. The time it takes comes out of my night, not my day. And if I still commuted to a workplace and it had a charger, I’d probably stay there for a half-day’s work.
Motto: the smaller the EV battery, the less charging resources you need.
Yup that is the point of a PHEV you only charge it at home, or anyplace that you can get free charging.
I’m not sure DCFC makes a ton of sense for PHEVs/EREVs. Well, other than the Ramcharger. It’s usually a relatively small battery, and even an overnight L1 charge on a standard outlet will keep up with most commutes OK.
Remember that “the governments” are elected by “the consumers” when you are bringing regulations up in an argument.
Except quite often how people vote at the ballot box and how they vote with their wallets are two very different things.
The ballot box is for how they want everyone else to act.
Their wallet is for their own actions.
Have to agree with you on this one.
And of course, for a large segment of the population, rules are for thee and not for me.
Great stuff. I mostly agree with you on these points but I don’t agree that we need to hold auto manufacturers responsible for the end user not plugging in their PHEV or EREV.
We don’t hold them responsible if someone buys a Prius but drives with their foot flat on the floor at every take off point. We don’t hold the manufacturer responsible if I have an auto stop/start feature that saves fuel but I disable it.
It’s up the the user to maximize these monetary and climate savings, the auto manufacturers just create the capability for us.
I agree with you to a degree.
If charging is inconvenient for EREV drivers, it might be so inconvenient to EV drivers that they borrow their friend’s 2002 Silverado. The ticket is: Give the capability drive all-EV, and make it so that plugging in is a no-brainer.
That part makes perfect sense. But my problem is you were advocating for some sort of penalty or other ways to hold the manufacturer responsible for that deficiency where I see this as an infrastructure and end-user problem.
But wholeheartedly agree that manufacturers could do a better job of making things better with plugs that are easier to use, better thinking through standardizing plug locations for municipal/public charging etc.
EVs are in a strange place too, with the infrastructure solutions being shared by independent companies, local governments and also auto manufacturers.
Was I advocating for a penalty? Holding automakers accountable for some level of emissions improvement has been happening for years, and that does require some kind of CO2 tracking. Understanding how that all works in the context of plug-in hybrids is something that needs to be solved. Though I haven’t thought too much about the answer.
Perhaps penalty was a bad choice of word.
But how do you ultimately hold them accountable? That’s my issue.
The manufacturer creates a vehicle that can meet a certain standard.
Consumers don’t follow the prescribed path that meets the standard for fuel economy or emissions.
How is it different if I drive for fun and eat up a lot more than the EPA says I could get driving slower? How is it different if I turn off auto stop/start that is used to meet fuel economy standards.
Why do we need to hold manufacturers responsible for EREV or PHEV that are not plugged in if all of the other ways we falter in not meeting the maximum economy standards for all vehicle types are the fault of the driver/owner?
I contend that we hold the owner/operator responsible. Sure, make it easier to use but I honestly think some people are just gonna do what they do. We don’t need to hold the manufacturer responsible.
Understanding how that all works in the context of plug-in hybrids is something that needs to be solved.
Isn’t that data pulled anonymously from the cars at state inspections?
The best way to do ALL of this is make hydrocarbon fuels sufficiently expensive to make people think about what they are doing in a vehicle. How large it needs to be, how fast it needs to be, how much it REALLY needs to be able to tow, how far away from work they need to live, etc.
Though really, that should be the case for EVs too – since pollution is HARDLY the only societal evil caused by personal vehicles.
But that is NEVER going to happen in the US of A.
I’m for a hiked gas tax, so long as we can make sure the less-fortunate among us have a way to get around without paying an arm and a leg.
As a resident of LA you’re already paying a hiked gas tax:
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-gas-tax-rates-2024/
How’s that LA public transit working out?
Also, since tire pollution is an uncontrolled particulate emission problem that all current road vehicles share.
Heavier and higher-performance vehicles make MORE of it too.
An employer tax on office workers too. The tax can be partially or completely waived depending on how much that employee works from home unless that employer can prove why WFH is impossible.
Or tax incentives to encourage WFH whatever is more effective.
Unfortunately the combined forces of corporate real estate, downtown commerce, highway maintenance, energy companies and government dependent on tax revenue from all the above will fight such an idea tooth and nail.
Completely agree. Smart companies, like the one I work for, have taken advantage of WFH to reduce costs. But we are small and well-managed, unlike the vast majority of large corporations.
I’ll bet the cost advantages of WFH are outweighed by the drop in the corporate and commercial investment profiles of those large corporations*. It’s my understanding cooperate RE took a big hit during the pandemic and companies who owned their own buildings were desperate to force employees back to the office regardless of health or safety consequences.
*Or at least the fiscal interests of the decision makers is.
IMHO, still rather dumb of them. It’s going to cost more to run a building full of people than a building that is empty, and people who commute are often both less productive and less happy. But since when have large corporations ever been particularly smart overall?
As a consultant I spend a LOT of time working with large corps, and the waste I see is *astounding* even in just my little corner of the IT world. But if it comes out of a different budget, it’s somebody else’s problem. And large universities are even worse, as they have no profits to care about.
That is why I suspect “Or at least the fiscal interests of the decision makers is.”
Kickbacks to company decision makers from landlords and other personal financial motivations would explain a lot.
David I can’t argue with a lot of what you’re saying here. But regarding why so many OEMs jumped on the EV bandwagon, it’s convenient to forget that a lot of governments essentially told them they had to. I don’t know how many of the EV-only mandates will be rolled back, my guess is more than zero, but looking at it from here, if the OEMs want to be able to sell cars in California in 2030, in the UK in 2035, they gotta have a competent lineup of EVs by then, and that means they had to start now.
Unfortunately all this back and forth has cost the global manufacturers who knows how many billions. I like clean air as much as anyone but considering new cars are like 99% cleaner than they were in the 60’s and each additional fraction of that last percent is exponentially more expensive to eliminate, it would seem more cost effective to me that the global collective “We” could maybe turn the focus onto other gross polluter sources that haven’t been under the type of strict pressure that the auto industry has for the last 50 years. They know who they are.
Every gallon of gasoline, diesel and natural gas burned makes as much CO2 today as it did in 1960.
Good point.
New gassers are much “cleaner,” as MS wrote, in terms of particulate and CO emissions, and we have extra-efficient ICE options that surpass cut the fuel use of the of the overall fleet average by 3x or more. The 1960 vehicle fleet averages 12 mpg, remember? So much engineering progress has been made, if you set aside new consumer preferences for heavier and faster vehicles). Remember the 80/20 rule: the last 20% of the way towards theoretical perfection costs 80% of the effort.
Perhaps but thanks to a population boom, a LOT more miles traveled and whatnot the world uses a lot more gas now than in 1960 that more than compensate for fuel efficiency improvements.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-fossil-fuel-consumption?time=1960..latest
Actually every gallon of gasoline makes more CO2 than it did back in 1960. Back then CO and HC weren’t regulated so more of those HCs went out the tail pipe w/o being converted into H2O and CO2 and more of those Cs were converted into CO instead of CO2. So since the 70’s the goal of emission controls has been to produce more CO2 per gallon of gasoline.
Oh I’m pretty sure those emissions turned into CO2 eventually. They just caused more trouble along the way.
I’m no expert, but I know no way to get C02 out of gasoline without burning it. The incomplete combustion in old engines left more gas unburned, to be spat out as raw hydrocarbons.That’s another way to say it.
In 1960, a lot of the gasoline bought was not burned, but left the tailpipe as unburned hydrocarbons. Plus, now automakers are responsible for lowering oxides of nitrogen (which have been blamed for causing visible smog).
Since we were talking about burned gasoline I didn’t count those unburned hydrocarbons 😉
I think we need to stop treating “range anxiety” like it is something that people need to get over. It is not an illogical concern especially if you can’t plug in at home. As DT stated in this and other articles our charging infrastructure is not where it needs to be. If someone can’t count of majority of chargers functioning or being available range of a BEV is very important. Too many EV advocates dismiss this issue too quickly.
What you are describing is charge anxiety, not range anxiety.
You are correct, but they are related. If it were easier to charge one would not need to be as concerned about range.
“ Tesla is an anomaly”
I disagree with that. Tesla is just a company that has the “first mover” advantage.
Were there other companies that came out with BEVs with Lithium-Ion batteries? Yes.
But Tesla was the first to take the business of building, selling and supporting BEVs SERIOUSLY… which includes taking lots of time to sweat the big and small details.
And thus, they started earlier than eveyone else with a long term plan to not just build/sell BEVs, but do it in a way to set the stage to bring down costs and remove the roadblocks to BEV ownership (which is what the Supercharger network is all about).
To do what Tesla did not only takes money and planning, but it also takes time. You can’t just easily buy your way into being competitive (like VW is trying to do)
Tesla is what you get with serious long term planning and committment… as opposed to short-term thinking to maximize the next quarter’s profits that at least some of the other auto companies are guilty of.
For Tesla to be an ‘anomaly’, it’s basically like saying that making and sticking to a long-term plan is an ‘anomaly’.
And for some companies like GM, maybe it is…
I think you just proved DT’s point, lol.
I think part of the anomaly DT’s implying is that not just as you say the focus on a long term plan, but the business environment at the time. No other companies having a good amount of EVs so Tesla could sell them their EV credits as a strong revenue source, and with the lower interest rates could get by on loans and investments from others. Also the general flair in which Tesla promotes things, the closest there was at the time for an environmental champion everyone knew was the Prius, not really an apples to apples type comparison, and not many people knew who the head of Toyota was, many probably didn’t even know a Prius was a Toyota.
With the current environment now, most car makers have some EVs so make their own credits, but for them to go full EV like Tesla they’d basically have to go into negative revenue on all the EVs, subsidized by their profits on the big Suvs/trucks and pretty much none of their shareholders would allow that so Tesla is still an anomaly. Granted GM came out with the Hummer which is nearly as ridiculous as the Cybertruck, but that was their low volume testbed for Ultium, and it actually looks like something that used to sell fairly popularly so still got a pass from Shareholders.
Now they’re all backing down from full EV as it is indeed cutting into the profits from all their big SUVs/Trucks so like you stated, can’t follow a long term plan. And for someone new to come along and try to make it, without massive cash to back it up as there’s not much left in the ev credit pool, it’s virtually impossible, so yes, Tesla is an anomaly.
The other thing is that by being that first mover Tesla benefited from the ability to sell credits to other automakers. For a while it was the only thing that put Tesla’s balance sheet in the black. Even today, if the report I recently read is true, 40% of Tesla’s profit is from the sale of regulatory credits. So they have people who purchased Chryslers to thank for where they are today. (No one reports who they sell credits to or who they buy from, but Tesla is by far the biggest seller and Chrysler is by far the biggest buyer)
So public perception of EREVs hinges on an electrically-complicated new Stellantis product?
I see nothing that could possibly go wrong.
This actually made me snort out loud. Well done. 🙂
The future is NOT ELECTRIC. Why? I have several reasons. As much as I do not like Toyota and their loyalists, I have to admit that I have to agree with Mr Akio Toyoda (even if the scandal cost him some reputation..).
A) 3/4 ton and 1 ton electric trucks will be a laughing stock. I guarantee this, otherwise Ms Mary B will foolishly suicide GMC/Chevrolet into getting rid of gas powered versions- they already are doing it , first with the Camaro, now with the Malibu, XT4, XT5…. There is a reason why Mr Duncan Aldred has stated that they have ZERO PLANS to get rid of ICE powered HD rigs. The current situation will further reinforce this, even with their stupid EV plans, and the lowering fuel economy issue hopefully does not mean a GPF or EGR must be added…
In the Middle East, EVs are not practical, even if I am seeing Teslas here in Qatar. To haul heavy loads, gas powered trucks are a better alternative simply because of extreme weight of batteries (solid state batteries will probably take years to accomplish this process of weight saving, even if ground breaking developments are made). The only exception to this is the Silverado EV, but that too is not practical. I recall seeing many pictures of Silverado HDs , mostly 90s and 00s, some 10s and 20s models being used in the Middle East as mobile gun trucks and overloaded with rocket launchers by armed groups….try that with a stupid EV…will not work.
B) Other markets simply CANNOT be forced into the EV transition. Yes, markets such as Latin America simply do not have the resources for transitioning to a fully EV market, and this applies to Asia and Africa as well. That is ONE REASON why the S10 Colorado is generally a simpler truck as well , offered in compelling configurations as a “working man’s truck”- same is the case with the Izuzu D MAX. That is ALSO why the S10 Trailblazer is offered with a diesel. The other is the sheer cost of EVs. Such markets I am SURE GMC/Chevrolet will keep offering ICE vehicles for many more decades past 2035 in those countries as well. And, I am sure that EVEN within their lineup, the impracticalness of EVs means that the Tahoe/Suburban/Yukon/XL/Escalade and the truck derivatives WILL HAVE ICE engines as well past 2035, given the limits of EVs. So, a 6th gen Silverado/Sierra may have AT LEAST a hybrid option to go with…
C) The environmental costs of EVs. This is known now, and we know corporations (include GMC/Chevrolet) and Tesla extract resources in a way that DOES GENERATE pollution to the environment and damages the surroundings greatly. This is one reason why I will NEVER own an EV anytime soon, and EV loyalists could do well to read about this major issue. And the authorities campaigning for EVs are the SAME PEOPLE pushing for EVs are the very ones who sadly are NOT aware of what people want and DO NOT CARE EITHER.
I hope this was clear. It is childish according to some, but not in the way I see it.
I disagree. “The Future” is the period of time between the next Planck second and the heat death of the universe and you don’t think Electric Vehicles will be in there somewhere? They’d damn well better be since all fossil fuel reserves are finite and humanity isn’t getting off this island paradise of rock anytime soon.
And if not batteries then what? Synthetic fuels? Hydrogen? If you think the challenges of batteries are insurmountable buddy do I have bad news for you about those.
Bravo. I wonder how many Planck seconds I have left …
Well if you live another 20 years you’re looking at about 10^53 Planck seconds. If atoms were Planck seconds you’d have enough mass to make an Earth sized planet.
Thanks. I feel much better.
I’m approaching that mass w/I thinking about Planck seconds.
I am not denying their existence. Fossil fuels are finite, but Kuwait has in recent years announced a massive discovery of an oil and gas reserve.
But again, do you REALLY think countries in places such as Latin America will get EVs anytime soon? No. They better be affordable IF that should be the case.
Areas like Latin America may actually see a faster uptake in EVs than you might expect. Developing areas without entrenched infrastructure interests have a funny way of leapfrogging technologies. From dirt floors, to cell phones and solar panels.
Chinese automakers are already taking over those markets, they will be more than happy to sell affordable EVs.
Well…Chinese ones might be, yes. But what about Africa?
China has been investing heavily in Africa for some time now… Both a place to mine battery materials, as well as manufacture and sell their products. Abundant sunlight makes solar electricity reliable, affordable and clean. Chinese electric buses are apparently quite common in African cities. Chinese car brands are announcing manufacturing and distribution networks in Africa not only to serve that continent, but for the proximity wealthy Europe and the Middle East.
China is working overtime to integrate developing countries into their economy and sphere of influence through soft power. A few African countries are some of the last to experience a growing birth rate. Modernizing these economies and entrenching themselves will no doubt be highly beneficial for China.
This is where EV development goes beyond left vs right, climate change politics, or what a given customer in the USA wants to buy… And becomes a matter of strategic importance.
Why else would a power-hungry Elon Musk, born into a South African mining family, see EV technology as his path to wealth and influence, when it seemingly fails to align with his surface level politics?
I look at it from another side as well. What would replace the GMT800s that have been rolling around with machine guns and rocked launchers in the Middle East used by armed groups?
Are you trying to imply that the main use of pickup trucks in the Middle East are machine gun “technicals”?
Not always. Some of them are used that way, others for hauling heavy loads. In such conditions, EVs need to be tested…
Donkeys, camels, horses,..
Yes, that too…but more or less for transport.
Relevant:
At the war trials at Nuremberg, Nazi leader Hermann Göring was asked why the Germans did not use “Gas Blau” to stop the Normandy invasion. Lovell paraphrases Göring’s explanation that it was because they could not create suitable gas masks for horses, which were critical for transporting supplies.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/04/hitler-chemical-weapons/
If donkeys/camels/horses were good enough for the German war machine they’re good enough for armed groups in the middle east.
Yes. They probably emit less pollution too…
Back to Toyotas.
Or, back to the Old GMT800s, and 900s they have with machine guns and bazookas….
The Toyotas they have are largely stolen. After they break down, they abandon them. A few pics of LC70s struggling to handle a rocket launcher should show you…
Good. We need to save that gas and oil for plastics and for aviation. There are plenty of uses for fossil fuels besides wasting it on ground transport.
As to Latin America Brazil has lots of of ethanol and hydropower yes? And China has a surplus of cheap EVs?
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/
Use those as a starting point.
Also, as feedstock for plastic and lubricants. Those long-chain molecules are always valuable in the chemical industry.
Even from the most cynical of perspectives, transitioning to a post fossil fuel extraction-based society is a massive geopolitical advantage, with the potential to massively rearrange global hegemony. There is a reason the most powerful country(s?) in the world project power from nuclear warships. Those vessels can be stationed anywhere in the world, without the need for an uninterrupted fuel supply line.
Sadly, the space-age fantasy of nuclear power in the palm of your hand may never come to fruition. But in a roundabout way, a cordless drill is already that.
Whoever can scale that up, mastering the infrastructure to distribute renewable home-grown energy (from solar, to hydro to fusion) over long distances and in convenient mobile packages, will see a massive multiplication in societal productivity. And for better or worse, an ability to wage war with unforeseen efficiency.
“Sadly, the space-age fantasy of nuclear power in the palm of your hand may never come to fruition.”
They already have. They didn’t just fit in your hand, they were safe and reliable enough to be embedded in the human body:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238#Nuclear_powered_pacemakers
Fascinating, I did not realize that.
You simply can’t let millions of random people in possession of fissionable material on any form. That raises a whole other unpredictable range of safety concerns.
Uh oh! Somebody better tell the building code folks!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium-241
https://constructioninspectiontips.com/smoke-detectors-code-requirements/
Right, it just takes time. With the US vehicle age over 12 years now, we don’t build ’em and replace ’em fast enough to make the shift rapidly. Hey you math heads out there, if each year we replaced 1/12 of our current fleet with nothing but BEVs, how long would it take to get to universal EV usage?
Ummmm, 12.
The average age is over 12 years, but that means a good portion (no, not exactly half) are older than the average. There’s definitely going to be a long tail of ICE vehicles even if most sales switched over to BEVs today.
Still waiting for a Mr. Fusion for every vehicle.
Every FLYING vehicle!
I can install a solar farm in the middle of absolute nowhere. Thousands of miles from any closest city. I could then place a population of people around that solar farm. Given wireless communication, and the ability to live off the land, this population could live 100 years without ever needing a “truck” of oil delivered to them.
This, to me, is energy independence. This is the future we are trying to achieve. It won’t happen without oil, so support your argument, but it will happen, and it must happen.
In Qatar, there is a solar farm project….
I assume because they understand that fossil fuels are finite. BUT, I can install a solar farm for a cost that is far less than the cost of fossil fuels over the lifetime. AND, that resource is renewable, and reusable (sun doesn’t go away, and solar cells are (in theory, eventually) recyclable/reusable). Meanwhile, fossil fuels aren’t (in any way shape or form) recyclable or reusable.
Said, again, another way….
I can do this in the middle of the Amazon, and that population could effectively live with the rest of us (from a communication standpoint) without ever having to live with the rest of us, physically. This form of independence should be overwhelmingly wanted by the population of folks who overly espouse “freedom” and “independence” from the world.
Yes, Qatar knows fossil fuels cannot exist forever, even though they do export LNG…
For reference, I have started seeing Tesla Taxis here….and the transport authority plans to convert 100% of its bus fleet to being electric (Yutong buses)…