"Some of you like cars, right?" Topic

One of my other hobbies is looking at cars and car trends. Subaru just announced that there would be no STI version of its famed WRX sedan for this entire generation. This generation is just now coming to dealerships. The STI version is the faster, better handling, louder version. The company announced that there might be an STI version in the future with the next generation (most likely electric). I don't know why but this hit me like a punch in the gut. I wasn't planning on buying this car, but it is the end of an era: the future will hold no gas and no manual transmission. We might as well just consign ourselves to self-driving pods. Thoughts?

Where is my pod already?

And the often-touted 'flying car' ?

Wait till the future day when the EV batteries all give out and everybody sees what the cost to replace ‘em is. Talk about sticker shock.

I was thinking the other day that you can take an original Model T, clean it up, put in some gas, and it will run just fine.
We won't be able to do that with the cars of today— even the gasoline cars. The electrical components won't last.
We have cars from the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and Nineties still being driven routinely by people today. But in fifty years, I don't think we'll be able to say that of cars from 2000 on…

I watched a review of an electric car recently, and the battery was guaranteed for 1,000,000 miles.

How in the world would you test for that?

Parzival the idea expressed in your post is why my
'other car' is a 1996 1/2 ton Ford pickup truck…

Almost 200K miles and runs fine….

My son-in-law's 'other car' is a restored (all
original parts) 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Aire same
reason

How in the world would you test for that?

It's only about 14 months at 100 mph. It's not even a month and a half at 1000 mph. And that would be an extreme overguarantee since the battery would be under ton more stress than in typical use.

But that's not how you test for it. Battery power transfer degradation is basically an exponential distribution. The coefficients are different for different load characteristics. You develop a model of use representing different load conditions. Then you measure the degradation of the battery under those conditions and fit the data back into your model. Standard practice is to include a "safety factor" of 10, so you report ten times less performance than you expect.

A guarantee of 1,000,000 miles is meaningless overkill. The rest of the car won't last that long, and in general people don't keep cars for that much use (even in delivery fleets). In some senses 1,000,000 miles is the same as 1,000,000,000 miles for a guarantee.

And the guarantee is a legal agreement that just says they will replace the battery if it doesn't achieve the stated standard. Given that the measurements have confidence intervals that limit application to every case, and that there will be outlier cases in use that don't match the model, it's not a big expense to replace the few where it doesn't meet the standard. You're going to replace many more batteries based on other defects than you are for running the battery down.

The overwhelming number of drivers are going to replace the car before they have to replace the battery.

The fiscal cost of the battery is currently between $5 USDK and $16 USDK. That's a lot for "a battery" compared to other batteries. They're actually cheaper per total use than an acid reaction conventional car battery. Of course, you're probably not going to be able to move it from one car to the next, so you don't really get that use.

I still don't care about the fiscal cost. China produces over 80% of the lithium used in those batteries. So, I'm an anti-China racist if that's a problem. Well, China stipmines the lithium in massive quantities. Because of that electric cars may be overall worse for the environment than (good) fossil fuel cars. There are a number of types of environmental damage that are allowed for industry in China, which also contribute. China also lacks significant worker protections that we consider basic.

The cost is too high.

By far the biggest Lithium producer is Australia. Only a small percentage of Lithium comes from China. China is the worlds biggest battery producer, but I believe Teslas produced in the USA use batteries made in the USA.

link

Thanks for the info, etotheipi and Nick!

I do note that chart from the Volkswagen site doesn't show any lithium production in North America, let alone the US. That should be a concern for a host of reasons.

I will point out that one of the limiters on continued use of certain vehicles isn't just the battery— it's the electronic components. Things like capacitors and so forth can have a limited life, and once they're gone… well, unless a company is manufacturing matching capacitors for your thirty-year-old device, you may be out of luck. What is this going to mean for modern vehicles? Who knows? But we may reach a point where "found in a barn" doesn't have a chance of resulting in a fully restored "classic" vehicle, if it's one from the modern era. You can restore a 1970 Mustang. Fifty years from now, will you be able to restore a 2020 Mustang (even a gas-powered one)? Or a 2020 Tesla? I think that's an open question.

There are several US Lithium mines. But see link

The batteries do appear expensive, however, compare them to gasoline costs. I drive about 400 miles a week to work and back. I get 25mpg, so 16 gallons, times $4 USD/gallon is $64 USD per week, times 52 weeks in a year is $3,328. USD If I keep the car for 5 years, that's about $16,000. USD

Have any comparisons been done between recharging an
EV's batteries and refilling a fuel tank ?

Or the total operating cost of an EV versus a distillate
fueled vehicle ?

The two dealers in town which sell EV's have the lowest
cost at just under $79,000. USD The cheapest distillate
fueled vehicle is just under $32,000. USD

Have any comparisons been done between recharging an
EV's batteries and refilling a fuel tank ?

YouTube link

Summary -- comparing electric vs petrol for the same car, the electrical car is cheaper in the long run.

Have any comparisons been done between recharging an EV's batteries and refilling a fuel tank ?

See also YouTube link

For a 9+ hour drive, petrol cost AUD $112 USD, electric (using the most expensive fast charging option) AUD $67. USD Electric was slower by 38 minutes due to recharging stops.

"Summary -- comparing electric vs petrol for the same car, the electrical car is cheaper in the long run."

I would argue that you should add 'for now' to this sentence. Since electricity doesn't have the same taxes that gas does, once the electric cars become common I imagine the charging stations will have more taxes put on them. Additionally, at least it the western United States, (OR, WA, CA),those states are either talking about, or have already imposed, 'road use' taxes. Since electric cars don't pay gas taxes they are now charging them taxes by the mile.

Thanks, Nick B.

I've asked my auto insurance carrier about rates to insure
an EV for 'comprehensive' (any damage/loss) coverage.

They're not quoting for certain EV's, only liability
coverage.

Tacitus:

I have a solution for you. Buy a MK7 Golf GTI. I bought a 2019 GTI Autobahn. I was skeptical that a front wheel drive car could have any performance. But with a computer control suspension, the GTI rocks! It has great performance and is way better looking than the ugly WRX. I can only speak for the 2019. The MK8 has gotten mix reviews. But the MK7 is just a joy to drive.

link