this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Electric Vehicles
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@Hovenko @autotldr #EVs are more expensive but more used vehicles are becoming available at lower price points, but the real difference is the dramatically lower cost to operate and maintain. Lower TCO.
As for charging, governments need to provide assistance to ensure widely available home or workplace charging. One effective way to channel funding is to set a low carbon fuel standard for petrol fuel suppliers, like California, British Columbia, and now Canada.
But do you want to buy an used EV? Especially if the battery is such a crucial component with unknown lifetime and a faulty one can cost quite a lot to replace.
And regarding ecology… this one is still questionable. What to do with battery waste? While charging, unless you have own solar (again not affordable for average person), you are still getting most energy from dead dinosaur.
And I am not against EVs, I am just frustrated looking at the state of things while tabloids, manufacturers and politicians are ignoring glaring issues.
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/09/16/good-news-ev-batteries-last-longer-than-expected/
Batteries, when finally finished in cars and a second life as a house/grid battery, they can be recycled. It's just there is a bit of a lack of them to recycle because they are lasting longer than planned. You can't recycled used petrol or diesel.
With ICE you want a big tank as you have to go somewhere special to refuel and so only go once a week. But with EVs, you refuel at home and start the day with plenty for the day, every day.
It's all new, but you can sell ICE just going to lose. EVs will get near price parity in years to come. And range just keeps improving. ICE is doomed long run. It's mad to have liquid fuel that has to transport at the scale of the fuel network. Compared to just fuel transmitted over wires that can be generated however.
First of all I understand why a lot of people are concerned about moving from ICE to EVs. It's a big change and there is still a long way to go before they become the majority of vehicles.
Having said that, plenty of people have already bought used EVs and it doesn't seem to be a major problem. Improvements in battery management systems and chemistry will further improve the life of EV batteries which will be on the used market by 2030. The price of new EVs is already starting to come down and that of used ones will follow. ICE cars are far more mechanically complex than EVs so you could argue there are more things that could go wrong buying a used ICE car than an EV but I do accept that batteries are an expensive part to replace.
Batteries can be repurposed for other applications where energy density is less important or they can be recycled.
Over the past year the grid was less than 40% fossil fuels and that will be less over time so most sounds like an exaggeration.