boemElectric cars will be cheaper to make than gas vehicles but with much higher repair and insurance costs
RookiThey will never be cheaper. Just the costs of the battery, or they do shady bussiness tricks, like hooking you in cheap initial costs but horeandus repair/replacement bills.
An electric motor is SIGNIFICANTLY more simple to produce than an entire internal combustion engine. There are far fewer moving parts on an electric car than a gasoline one.
The battery is a significant cost, but not all cars need to have 300 miles of range. It is also possible that once the market is saturated (i.e. - several decades), that recycled battery packs will be cheaper to produce than batteries built from raw materials.
The major reason why electric cars are so expensive right now is because there are far fewer of them, and the ones that are being made have a target market of an upper-middle class household. They’re luxury/status symbols as much as anything else. Secondarily, there isn’t a large used electric car market yet.
There is a large potential for cost reductions. Assuming technology continues to improve, electric cars will drop below the price of gas and diesel for everyday driving. Internal combustion engines will most likely be reduced to specialty vehicles.
UsernameblankfaceAlso, as we realize that we don’t need 400+ miles of range in a commuter car, cheaper battery chemistries make a lot of sense, despite their shorter range per kg or lb
dan1101If I buy an EV I would like it to do 400 miles, but I don’t need 0-60 in 3 seconds.
I think trim packages or settings in the car that trade acceleration for range make a lot of sense.
That’s not really how electric motors work though. They spin up crazy fast, which means fast 0-60 times. Think about an electric mixer in your kitchen; it takes more or less the the same amount of time for it get up to speed weather it’s on the highest setting or the lowest setting since the motor is the only moving part. There is no fancy gearing to vary the speeds, it’s based solely on the amount of energy being put into the system.
Yes, and varying the amount of power put into the system would increase or decrease the total range. A full power launch depletes the battery more quickly than a gentle, controlled acceleration to road speed.
I’m talking about limiting the amount of power that can be dumped into the motor at any given time, or limiting the power of the motor itself in order to get a more efficient experience.
That’s entirely on the user at that point, and cant really be designed around. Anything you add to limit acceleration is just going to add more complexity and expense for no actual benefit. If you want better range, stop flooring the car out of every stop, same as an ICE car.