EV and Mach-e Myths and Fallacies

[SonicBlue]

If you have the extended range, in the summertime first leg in the morning you can go comfortably upwards of 250 miles if you start at a 100% charge. For the second leg going from 80% to 20% will give you a decent 180 mile range. For all but a few of us, that is a day's travel. I've had fun going 800 miles a day on occasion but no plans for that in the future. Your mileage may vary. These days I likely would make it a 200+ and a 150 mile legs before calling it a day.

It doesn’t actually work that way though, does it? Even if you get 250mi or range at highway speed (that would be very optimal winds, temps, and probably topping out at 70mph), you’re not gonna find a charger at exactly 250mi and you wouldn’t risk going down to 0 even if you could. Same for the next leg. And then there is the hunting for chargers, the extra driving to a charger, the waiting in line for a charger, the broken chargers, etc. Public charging just isn’t nearly as rosy and mathematically clean as proponents depict.

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[ChehRob]

If you know there is a Tesla Super Charger 250 miles from you starting point you can rely on that (not on a holiday weekend, without a wait). I have relied on the SOC down to the last few percent of the charge because I knew I could get home. I had to slow down the last 50 miles to do it, but it only cost me 10 minutes or so. There were two chargers I could stop at if needed, but why bother?

 

[corradoborg]

But solar panels are well under 30% efficient at converting sunlight. Wind turbines are around 40%. That is just the physics of the devices, then count in the availability of sunlight and winds, oh, and transmission losses.

Irrelevant. If you don't collect solar, 100% of it is wasted as a power source. If you don't collect wind power, 100% of the wind simply passes you by. If you do collect them, that 30-40% you're collecting is 100% free (after the equipment pays for itself). Transmission losses are negligible. It's a net gain, regardless of the efficiency of the panels/turbines.

 

[Schmedlack]

I mostly start with ai (a good paid version) and double check details with a specific web search. Consumer reports is behind the times too much to be useful. Asking forums has its place.

Most ai engines do live searches and aggregate the content results, and give you the web pages it used, as refernces to double check. Today's ai is not last year's ai. I have accounts with three different ones and have learned which are trustworthy. I use the ais for that, too.

Web results are now so crowded with ai content that searches are less and less useful. It's ai vs ai. "This side toward enemy".

Thank you for your valued opinion. I am planning to learn more about the pros and cons of personal AI before I use any of it. Until I trust it, I'll stay away.

 

[Mach1E]

Yes. The quiet, sudden acceleration, and fuel savings are my three favorite things about EV ownership.

For sure. I don’t think I could go back to a non-EV daily driver.

But then again the sounds that the exhaust and blow off valve make on my supercharged 6 speed 2011 Mustang GT also are my favorite things about it. I just couldn’t drive it daily.

 

[Makomachine]

I will never go back to ICE - I'll buy Chinese if I have to do so. Just a better vehicle and zero of that has to do with the environment which i consider a bonus.

 

[Discwizard70]

I will never go back to ICE - I'll buy Chinese if I have to do so. Just a better vehicle and zero of that has to do with the environment which i consider a bonus.

Agree to that 100 percent. There are just too many benefits, and few cons.

 

[johnnycombo]

You cant fix stupid. Its not like the information isnt available. Its not like every human past age 5 doesnt have access to just about every fact in history in their pocket. Those people chose to be ignorant. I doubt your counter points will overcome that.

But you can adjust stupid with a two by four!

 

[corradoborg]

If you don't extract oil from the ground it just sits there at 0 potential BTU. Not sure what your point is.

It takes considerably more effort to continue to find new oil reservoirs and exploit them. We don't have to drill into the sky to find new pockets of solar and wind power. The best locations for collecting solar and wind are known, and no matter how much power you extract from them, it keeps coming back forever. There is no wasted solar or wind power because their energy is used by natural processes as well, such as heating the earth, powering the hydrological cycle, pollinating plants, driving migrations, etc.

Passively collecting energy from a clean, constant, inexhaustible resource within one's own territory is infinitely better than having to expend great effort and treasure to collect a dirty, limited resource over which wars frequently have to be fought. Leave those oil BTUs in the ground. We don't need them.

 

[superdave80]

(not enough range to get to Georgia and no chargers available on the way),

There are no fast chargers between Florida and Georgia?

 

[Mach1E]

There are no fast chargers between Florida and Georgia?

Not enough for everyone to evacuate in an EV.

And there never will be enough for everyone.

DC charging works great for occasional usage for long trips. Not for emergencies when you have millions of drivers having to travel a long distance at the same time like a hurricane evacuation.

Picture the lines you see in California on a holiday weekend and multiply that by 10. It just doesn’t work logistically.

 

[Teslaeata]

Another thing to consider is the reason why people are buying /not buying EVs. It's not always invirementally based. I bought both of mine for financial reasons. Both my wife and I travel a decent amount for work. I do at least 120 miles daily, she does at least 45. I get $. 64/mile tax credit, and where I live and mostly charging at home it costs me about $12 to fill up and her $9 to fill up average. With our old vehicles it was double that or more. Overall cost of ownership (another EV myth!) when you look over the period of ownership with tires/brakes/fuel/maintenance/etc the EV so are a much better financial situation for my business over the roughly 100k miles it will be used. I know EVs are not for everyone, but for me and my business, it's an easy no brainer. If they offer help to the air, then great, if they don't, I am still better off.

Ditto.

UK tax breaks include that the full value of vehicle was able to be offset entirely against corporation tax in the year bought, no road tax for more than 4 years, c£8k saving in fuel over 115,000 miles, £hundreds saved in servicing costs, personal company car tax a fraction of ICE vehicles’ and more benefits I can’t even recall ATM.

It’s worked like a Trojan and been one thoroughly enjoyable car to drive.

 

[MyMach-E is a Boat Anchor]

One thing that is not a myth, never buy an electric vehicle from Ford. Been there, done that, one of the worst decisions of my life. Traded my Mach-e in at 17,000 miles for a gas guzzling Jeep and have never looked back.

 

[Discwizard70]

One thing that is not a myth, never buy an electric vehicle from Ford. Been there, done that, one of the worst decisions of my life. Traded my Mach-e in at 17,000 miles for a gas guzzling Jeep and have never looked back.

Everyone has different experiences with different brands/models/fuel type. It's unfortunate that you had issues with Ford and EVs, and I do caution you that you bought a Chrysler with Jeep badges. I do hope you are problem free and happy with that like I am with both my EVs from Ford and the dealership I bought them from.
I am a traveling Auto Inspector, so I see tons of issues from All makes and models, and I see more Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep issues than literally every other brand. Now, as a side note, I am inclined to believe that a good portion of the issues I see are due to bad ownership practices with maintenance. So hopefully your Jeep will take care of you as much as you take care of it. That being said, I don't see anything with Ford or the EVs that spooks me out of purchasing 2 of them! It's still the early years for them, and some dealerships are, indeed, mismanaged, but... Yeah.... I look at vehicle issues for a living, and for me and many here, it's been a solid choice.

 

[Ford_orr]

Well actually you do need them if you like to have Amazon ship stuff to your house, or wear clothes, or drink water, or have paint on your house, or sit on the vinyl seat in your MME, or fly for business or vacation, or crazily, coat all those wires that get eletricty from the sustainable energy source to the windings inside your MME traction motor.

That's the dilemma, a lot of the stuff used to have a comfortable life comes from petroleum and gasoline and jet fuel is a primary by product of that process.

That's why I've always said, and people understandably get upset, that we, as a species, will extract every last drop of oil on earth. I'm not saying that we should or that it's right, but there will always be a voracious need for oil and trillions of dollars to be made. So it will procured by any means necessary, regardless of environmental impacts. I guarantee you, if there are F5 tornadoes in Alaska and Florida is frozen solid, we'll still be digging for oil. All renewable energy and electric vehicles are doing is buying us time to figure out how to live underground like mole people while the surface of the planet is uninhabitable. Then in a few million years, we'll be the fossil fuel the next "evolved" species starts digging up for energy. Maybe they'll be smarter than us, but I doubt it.

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