Much better, IMHO, to walk before we try running. Two 450 mile BEVs or three 300 mile BEVs are much much more useful in reducing CO2 than a bunch of 900 mile cars. It’s not that there is anything wrong in improving battery tech…I’m all for that. But you could take a minivan or big suv and fill it up with batteries and get a 900 mile car today. So what?
It isn’t really as useful as getting 2 or 3 cheaper EVs on the road since most people what cheaper cars and only drive <40 or 50 miles per day anyway.
Why stop at 900 miles? Why not go for 1500 or 2000 so that apartment dweller can go another week or two without charging?
I’m three weeks into EV ownership and the range anxiety is starting to leave me. I feel that most of the people who want a 900-mile EV have never owned one and, as a result, have a lot of range anxiety. I don’t see the need for it (besides, just how long would it take to refill a 300kw battery anyway?).
About the longest I could drive in a single day comfortably 400 miles, maybe 450. That means I need a single 40-minute charge in my ZDX halfway, and a full-charge overnight at the hotel or destination. And this is easy to do with my current 300-mile range car.
Management usually installs the amenities that their clientele desires. That’s how they rent their units quicker/more$$$/etc than their competitors. I was shocked to see an apartment complex in NC install a bunch of dedicated chargers in their parking area for EV owners. They didn’t make that investment without sufficient demand for it!
Actually, the point of the 900 mile figure is not that someone will make a 900 mile car … they might, if it turns out there is a market … apartment owners may have reasons to not provide chargers. But, the real point is that if one has a battery equivalent to current batteries in weight and size, but capable of powering the car for 900 miles, then one can make very different design choices. For example, a 450 mile car which requires half the battery, reducing weight dramatically and enabling different designs. Or a truck that is now capable of a 300 mile range might now be capable of 600 or more miles with the same size battery.
IIRC the 900 mile number was just thrown out there by a poster and not part of the link in the original post. I don’t know, is there a car company actually proposing that they can do this with the next (supposed) battery tech. And by “this” I mean 900 miles on a battery the same size as today’s 300-400ish mile batteries? Doubtful in the next 5 or even 10 years, IMO.
Yeah, it would be great, if possible or even close to possible and still leave room in the trunk and a back seat.
Edit: I should add that this doesn’t count something like the Cybertruck where they add a battery to the pickup bed if they ever actually do this.
Mike
Oh, this is definitely true! The EV owners will gravitate to apartments that ARE upgradable (and upgraded). The non-EV owners will not care either way.
Chicken. Egg. I’m in Boston for a funeral, and went to the alley behind the condo I owned for 50 years. Two 10 story apartment buildings nearby, our condo, another next door, and two fraternities. Lots of cars. Not a single charger: fast, slow, or otherwise. None on the streets where everyone without a dedicated space parks, either.
It will come. It’s going to be painfully slow. It’s not like Norway where the government gave major incentives for it, where the price of gas was over $6 a gallon, where apartment buildings were tax subsidized to install, where …
This is true. In the USA, they give major subsidies for it, but the subsidies are directed mostly to “studies” and “research” and “reports” (mostly to folks who happen to be in favor with the political leadership) and only later, much later, perhaps to a few actual devices. It works the same way for high-speed rail, or pretty much any US transportation-related project. And don’t get me started on military-related projects, those are almost always purely politically motivated (to provide really good jobs to ex-govt and ex-military folks), and quite often have no meaningful results after decades of spending.
And you really believe this?
If it were true they would already have camouflaged prototypes driving around being seen. They would have the battery factory nearly completed and contracts for the materials supply chain, etc.
How would anyone know it was a camouflaged car if they did a good job of camouflage?
We do not know much about the battery other than it is “solid state”. So the sourcing of the battery components would be different than for other vehicles using current tech (“non-solid-state”) batteries.
That is not really camouflage. You know what it is. What I consider to be camouflage is making the car “disappear” into the mix of cars on the road and not be readily identified as a new/different vehicle.
With the supposed year until first sale they should be long past that stage. The real truth is that there won’t be a 900 mile Toyota BEV in a year, IMO.
Ampol, one of the country’s largest petrol retailers, has dialled back plans to triple the number of electric vehicle chargers because of power grid limitations in a blow to government hopes of pushing motorists towards cleaner cars in big numbers by 2030.
The company’s chief executive, Matt Halliday, said it would not be possible to expand the number of charging bays from 92 to 300 by the end of this year because of difficulties connecting chargers to the grid which is already struggling to cope with an influx of renewable energy generation.