Electric Vehicles

I'll start this topic by commenting on the insane requirements for federal tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs) for next year. Starting January 1, 2024, a qualifying vehicle cannot have any components or raw materials from China. For whatever reason, China leads the world in lithium ion battery production. Hence, most EV batteries come from China. Hence, most EVs won't qualify for the federal tax credit next year.The motivation for the EV federal tax credit was to encourage the transition to an electric economy, not to punish China. The growth in sales of EV vehicles is expected to slow next year because of the decreased availability of the federal tax credit. We're cutting off our nose to spite our face.--Percy

Even though the article was updated on December 1, only limited information was available for 2024. For example, it says the Tesla Model 3 qualifies for the full credit this year and commented that Tesla had announced that the full credit might not apply in 2024 but had provided no details. We now know that in 2024 only the Tesla Model 3 Performance Version (maybe 10% of Model 3 sales) will be fully eligible in 2024. No Tesla Model S qualifies because it's been deemed a luxury car. I assume the same is true of the Model X since it's in the same price range. A whole bunch of cars in that same $80,000 price range are listed as qualifying, so maybe that changes in 2024.I think it might take a while for the details about the effects of the China exclusion and other changes to become clear, but it should be pretty stiff if they're predicting that EV sales growth will slow in 2024.Another financial motivator for going EV is their lower maintenance costs, but while I have no data I suspect that that savings doesn't begin to kick in until at least year 5 because ICE vehicles have improved so much in quality.--Percy

I did learn something EV related recently that is both negative and true. In an article about Electrify America I learned that it was founded as part of Volkswagen's settlement with the US over it's fraudulent emissions reporting for diesel vehicles. The netword they've built is very unreliable: VW spent $2B to build America a charging network. It’s ranked dead last.If it were just one bad company it wouldn't be so bad, but while I don't have hard data I have read many stories about people having trouble finding a working charging station. I have a Tesla and have never encountered a non-working charging station, but it must happen.ChargePoint has by far the largest charging network, but almost all their stations are level 2. Charging a couple hundred miles at a level 2 station would take about 4 hours, at a rough estimate. At level 3 stations you can get a couple hundred miles in about 30 minutes.It's important to note that charging an EV's battery up to about 90% can happen very, very quickly at a level 3 charger, maybe 30-40 minutes to go from 10% to 90%. But if you want to charge up to 100%, that last 10% can be very, very slow, up to another 30 minutes at least.When on trips we find we're usually stopping for lunch, so we find a Tesla charging station because they're almost all in malls or in retail districts or at eateries. The car's navigation system finds them for you, navigates you there, then resumes your normal navigation. We just plug in and go in for lunch. By the time we've finished lunch the car is charged to at least 90% and off we go.--Percy

I recently posted a comment at the WaPo article How Tesla Autopilot got grounded, a timeline that while factual was structured negatively, with a very misleading headline to boot. Some accident statistics were cited in the comments, and this was one of the responses:

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Thanks Elon for the cherry-picked statistics. How many of those 4,850,000 miles driven were under ideal conditions, conditions that meet Tesla's guidelines? How many of those 652,00 miles driven were under the same conditions? You have no idea what those number mean and the data what data was used. You are just quoting numbers that Tesla is feeding people to sell cars.

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I think the commenter is a not untypical skeptic. Elon makes it easy to be skeptical with his arrogance and over-promising. But there *are* facts out there, something many of the skeptics don't seem very interested in.We had dinner with friends a few weeks ago, and one is an EV skeptic. The conversation never turned to EV's, but since I have a Tesla it did get mentioned briefly a couple times. I think one time I commented about having lunch while the Tesla charged, and another time about lower range in winter. He was all over both comments with negativity. Oh, just remembered, I have an electric leaf blower now, and he was all over that, too.I think his attitude about electric power must be related to his opinion on climate change. He believes it's a made-up crisis, so he's against anything that's supposed to help slow climate change.The trick to friendship is to remember that agreeing on everything isn't why you're friends. --Percy

I think Elon promotes false impressions. For instance, in July of this year he said Tesla would have self-driving cars by "later this year." He added that "this is only speculation", but also that "we're closer to it than we ever have been."Across the several million Tesla owners there will be a small percentage who improperly interpret his comments. I wish the NTSB and the NHSTA were able to come down more heavily on Elon when he makes comments that aren't an accurate reflection of reality.--Percy

I found a promotional video from Toyota that describes a "water engine", but it contain a significant contradiction. Beginning at 58 seconds and while displaying an image of an internal combustion engine (ICE) it states that Toyota is researching a water engine, but then at time 1:22 it shifts to a diagram of a car that uses a fuel cell.The video seems genuinely from Toyota, and like GDR's video it says it uses electrolysis to create hydrogen, but given that contradiction it's unclear what technology they're talking about. Here's the video: Using water to provide hydrogen through electrolysis solves the hydrogen storage problem, but it doesn't seem like it could be very efficient. But let me look up some numbers and play with them.A pound of hydrogen gas can power a fuel cell car for about 50 miles, and a gallon of water contains about .935 pounds of hydrogen, so 10 gallons of water could power a fuel cell car for about 450 miles, which is excellent.It takes roughly 2.5 kWh to electrolyze a pound of hydrogen, so 10 pounds of hydrogen could be produced with 25 kWh and take you 500 miles in a fuel cell car. That's amazing, because a Tesla Model 3 with a 75 kWh battery can only go 340 miles. If I've got my math right, a 75 kWh battery electrolyzing water into hydrogen that drives a fuel cell to generate electricity to power the car would give you 1500 miles of range.But I'm very suspicious of this final number. Perhaps I have wrong how far a fuel cell car can go on a pound of hydrogen, or perhaps I have wrong how much energy it takes to produce a pound of hydrogen. It makes no sense to me that this: Is less efficient than this: Perhaps someone sees where I have gone wrong?--Percy

Took another glance at it. You guys are right, it's not from Toyota. I was taken in by how slick the video was, by how much it resembled a company's promotional video, and by how often it displayed the Toyota logo. Are you reading this, Phat? Beware those YouTube videos.I actually found the video at LinkedIn (Water Engine: Toyota's Game-Changing Tech for Future Mobility) and so didn't give it the scrutiny I should have.I'm still curious about my calculation. Must be an error in there somewhere. I'll check the figures and my math again when I get a chance.--Percy

Tesla has given all current owners a free month of Full Self Driving. I got in my car yesterday for a 20 minute drive and the notice was on the screen. All I had to do was tell it where to navigate and then pull down on the shift lever.So I gave it a try. It did an excellent job maneuvering along back roads, obeying stop signs and lights, and turning onto very busy roads. It navigated past a power company truck pulled over to the side of the road with no problem. I was cut off once and it handled that perfectly.I set it to go up to 10 mph over the speed limit, but it was often at only 5 or 6 mph over the limit.I have only a few complaints. It's very aggressive about changing lanes. If it needs to change lanes and there's no car beside you then it will turn on the turn signal and change lanes, even though it would mostly eliminate the stopping distance of a car in the adjacent lane. It will change lanes into much tighter spaces than I ever would.And it actually stops at stop signs. Very, very briefly, but it still comes to a full stop. But it isn't the stop at the stop sign that bothers me since I do that, too (drives my wife crazy, and probably the person behind me, too). The problem is that it stops at the stop sign. Wherever the stop sign is, that's where it stops. If the stop sign is fifteen feet back from the intersection then the car stops at the stop sign and then creeps up to the intersection before making a decision about when to pull out.It's also more aggressive about pulling out into traffic. I would have let the truck go by. After all, he's big and there was no one after him, but the Tesla did the math and away it went with more room to spare than I would have thought, though it punched the gas, er, electric pretty good.It was also naive about when to make lane changes. When pulling through the light onto the main road you must always go immediately to the left lane because in a mile you have to turn left and if you don't get in that left lane right away then no one will let you in. Your turn signal only causes them to close ranks. Of course, the Tesla doesn't care. Its logic goes, "Lane change needed, no actual collision would be caused by changing lanes, so off we go! Take that, gap closer!"I had very ambivalent feelings about the experience. On the one hand I thought it did an amazing job. On the other hand I found it incredibly nerve racking when pulling onto busy roads. It would nose up to the intersection, there would be what felt like an abortive attempt or two, then it would settle down and pick a perfectly safe time to pull out. Meanwhile I'm white-knuckled in the driver's seat, foot poised over the brake pedal in case it makes a wrong decision. Which it never did.It was also seductive on straight and relatively empty stretches of road. Your hands just unconsciously slip off the wheel. Eventually it warns you to return your hands to the wheel.I tried telling it to park but it ignored me. Looking it up just now, there's a place on the touchscreen to engage Autopark, it's one of those "touch and hold" things, so I'll try it today.There also a summon mode, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll be at a daycare, so I might decide not to try it today.Even after just one use I'm already certain I will not be shelling out $12,000 for FSD when the free month is up. Driving is usually a relaxing experience for me, and this makes me nervous.--Percy

Today it approached a light in the left turn lane when it was supposed to go straight. The left turn light was red, and it had almost stopped when it realized its mistake and tried to return to the main lane, but I thought it might do that and was keeping my eye on traffic in that lane in the sideview mirror. A truck was approaching, so I immediately stopped it. Whether it would have actually gone through with it I don't know.Then later on it shifted into the left lane in front of a gap closer who was really close by the time the lane shift was completed. To register his annoyance he passed on the right and cut in front of me.I also tried Autopark when I got home. It successfully backed into the garage. Maybe not as straight as a person might do it, but it did it.I didn't try summon. When I enabled it and set the settings I discovered it only works within 40 feet anyway, so I don't see why I would ever need it. The warnings it displayed said only to try it on private property.What would be really neat is if you could pull up to a restaurant in the city, tell the car to go park, then summon the car when you're done.One more minor downside. I try to avoid potholes, bumps, depressed manhole covers, etc., but FSD doesn't know they're there.--Percy

Same here. We live on a loop. Within 500 feet of home if it takes a left it instead goes straight, about a 1000 feet. It doesn't even realize you can't check the mailbox from that direction! --Percy

I turned off Full Self Driving earlier today. For local driving it felt like I always had to be on the alert for potential wrong moves. I'm almost never on a highway where it seems like it would be pretty useful, but by the time we take our next trip my free month will be up. Forget if I already mentioned, but Tesla charges $12,000 or $199/month for FSD.--Percy